WHO election: Nepal's nominee hopes to get India's support

Dr Shambhu Acharya, Nepal's minee for post of World Health Organisation regional director, on Thursday sought India's backing against his Bangladeshi rival and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's daughter Saima Wazed, saying he would support "Bharat" to promote its global health nda beyond region.

"I see a great opportunity right w to win, though body kws outcome," Acharya, who is Nepal's official candidate for Regional Director for WHO, South East Asia, told PTI in an interview.

When asked about his chances of winning, he said that when one participates in an election, he or she hopes to win.

"I am a public health leader kwn within region and beyond. And I am a public health leader, that has been proven from my track record in terms of what I can bring in, what I can achieve as a leader and how I can foster partnership with member states and with different partners," he said.

He hoped that he would receive support from India during election for coveted post.

"India is one of 11 member countries in region. Bharat certainly is a very important country because of its ecomic development and techlogical advancement and because it can support many countries and also Bharat being G20 president and leading global health nda can contribute substantially," he said.

"If I am elected regional director, we can also support Bharat to promote ir global health nda beyond region," he said.

"I sincerely hope that Bharat will see my capability, competency and my profile as well as my association with Bharat as a student and a public health professional and this makes me hopeful that I would get a vote from Bharat," he added.

He said South Asia has an ermous opportunity to really improve health and region is ecomically growing, it has young talents, techlogical advancement and also pioneered in producing cheap local generic medicines and vaccines.

"We can find low cost invative solutions, which can help improve health services particularly, where we haven’t really taken low cost solutions and techlogy." He said he has worked for many years in WHO across three levels and represented WHO in UN and or ncies. "I have seen that this region has made substantial progress in health and I guess where we would need more stride would be on improving population health connecting education with health," he added.

"We need to improve health system so that we can ensure each and every citizen of this region has access to basic health services if and when we fall sick regardless of wher citizen is poor or rich," he said.

He said he would promote traditional medicines, because many countries in this part of world have traditional medicines and or areas like Yoga and Meditation. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Sewa Lamsal said that Nepal has been campaigning in favour of Dr. Acharya, who is a qualified and experienced candidate.

"It's a very important position in WHO and Nepal has got a good chance by fielding our candidate,” Nepal's former ambassador to India Dr. Durgesh Man Singh said.

"We need to focus more on lobbying as re will be tough competition,” he said. Acharya has been associated with WHO for more than 25 years and has also worked closely with its Director General Tedros. He played an active role while establishing Traditional Medicine Centre in Jamnagar, Gujarat at initiative of WHO.