Reuters: New WHO regional chief must battle lifestyle conditions, tropical diseases
“Western Pacific health ministers picked a Japanese doctor as the next regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday, spearheading a campaign to rein in lifestyle diseases linked to obesity and eradicate some tropical diseases by 2020. Beginning next year, Hiroshima-born Takeshi Kasai, 53, will use his five-year term to tackle growing concern over lifestyle diseases, which officials blame for 80 percent of deaths among the 1.9 billion people of the Western Pacific…” (Mogato, 10/9).