A Female Doctor is the New WHO Regional Director

Her name is Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s new regional director for Africa. She is from Botswana and was nominated on Tuesday 27. The 60 year old physician earned her medical degree at the University of London’s Royal Free Hospital, ran tuberculosis and H.I.V. programs

in Botswana and has worked for three United Nations agencies.

Her two siblings are doctors, one is an engineer. Her decision to become a doctor was partly influenced by her then boyfriend who is now her husband

Her parents gratuated from top medical schools, the University of the Witwatersrand. But the racism and introduction of Bantu education for blacks forced them to move to Botswana to give their children better education.

“There is no question that, as a region, we need to up our game,” Dr. Moeti said. “The W.H.O. is reforming, and one of my intentions is to fast-track reform in the region, too.” She said in response to lament and complaints over WHO regional body inability to manage Ebola spread.

During the selection process, Dr. Moeti said, she was not pressured to promise jobs to anyone in return for any country’s vote, which is known to have happened in the past.

Dr. Peter Piot, a discoverer of the Ebola virus who is the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a critic of the W.H.O.’s Ebola response, said Dr. Moeti was “very experienced and technically very competent.”

She promised to make Ebola fight a priority and get more African countries to adopt health insurance for basic medical care, as has been done in Rwanda and Ghana.