{"id":454675,"date":"2017-05-24T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=9c95776f1ea326d13f0f8f971e325f80"},"modified":"2026-09-09T15:40:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T19:40:30","slug":"tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-ethiopian-health-minister-elected-who-director-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/454675","title":{"rendered":"Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Ethiopian health minister elected WHO Director-General"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In May 2017, <strong>Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus<\/strong> became the first African elected Director-General of the World Health Organization. A former Ethiopian health and foreign minister, he rose through malaria and health-systems work before entering global diplomacy.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-265193\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Dr.-Tedros-Adhanom.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Ethiopian health minister elected WHO Director-General\" \/><\/p>\n<p>His election was a milestone for African representation in UN technical leadership. Supporters cited Ethiopia\u2019s health-extension program and his malaria expertise; critics raised questions about rights and epidemic reporting during his Ethiopian tenure\u2014debates that followed him into the COVID-19 era.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of later controversies, the 2017 vote remains a landmark in Ethiopian soft power and in the history of global health governance.<\/p>\n<h3>Sources<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/director-general\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WHO \u2013 Director-General biography<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.france24.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">France 24 \u2013 election coverage archive context<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>L&#8217;\u00c9thiopien Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, premier africain \u00e0 la t\u00eate de l&#8217;OMS&nbsp;&nbsp;FRANCE 24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":265193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Dr.-Tedros-Adhanom.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1Uht","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599632,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454675\/revisions\/599632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}