A senior Kuwaiti official congratulated on Wednesday the nomination of Dr. Margaret Chan, former health chief of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the next director-general.

Dharar Abdul-Razzak Razzooqi, head of the Kuwait mission to the United Nations in Geneva, told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that his country would support the work of Dr. Chan so that she could successfully fulfill her mandate.

Kazem Behbehani, a senior WHO official from Kuwait, also became one of the five finalists to run for the nomination, but he was eliminated in an earlier voting by the UN agency's decision-making body Executive Board.

"Though Dr. Behbehani did not come out as a winner in the final race, he had solicited the support of 28 countries out of 34 when the short list was chosen on Monday", Razzooqi was quoted as saying.

Margaret Chan's nomination on Wednesday came after four rounds of secret balloting by the UN agency's 34-nation Executive Board, during which four other heavyweight competitors were eliminated.

Chan, 59, joined the WHO in 2003 and has since been the agency's top official for pandemic influenza, as well as the assistant director-general for communicable diseases.

Source: Xinhua