Shigeru Omi
{{BLP sources|date=June 2011}}
File:Shigeru Omi cropped 2 Shigeru Omi and Shinzo Abe 20200407 3.jpg
Shigeru Omi (born June 11, 1949) is the President of the Japan Community Health Care Organization. He previously served as Regional Director of the Western Pacific Regional Office for the World Health Organization.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/23/world/asia/23iht-flu.html|title=World bird-flu risk is 'gravest possible'|last=Crampton|first=Thomas|date=23 February 2005|work=New York Times|accessdate=28 June 2011}} He has been a member of the World Health Organization Executive Board since 2013.{{cite web|url=https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/note-correspondents/2016-06-29/note-correspondents-secretary-general-appoints-global|title=Note to Correspondents: Secretary-General Appoints Global Health Crises Task Force|work=United Nations|accessdate=4 September 2016}}
Early life
Omi was born in Tokyo on June 11, 1949. In 1967, while studying at the Junior and Senior High School at Komaba, University of Tsukuba, he was selected to take part in an American Field Service cultural exchange and studied at the high school in Potsdam, New York for one year. On returning to Japan in 1968, he found that due to nationwide student protests the entrance exams for Tokyo University had, as with other national universities, been cancelled by the government. Unable to apply there, he instead studied law at Keio University. At first he considered a career as a diplomat or in a trading company, but was deeply affected by reading the work of doctor and psychiatrist Yushi Uchimura. After dropping out of Keio University, he enrolled in a medicine degree at Jichi Medical University.
Career
File:Shigeru Omi and Masato Mugitani cropped 2 Shigeru Omi and Masato Mugitani 201101.jpg (January, 2011)]]
During his tenure with the World Health Organization, he is credited with the eradication of polio in the 37 countries in the Western Pacific Region in 2000 as part of the Regional Polio Eradication Initiative.{{cite web|title=Dr. Shigeru Omi: Leading International Health Care Authority|url=http://www.japanese-greatest.com/worldwide-activity/shigeru-omi.html|website=The World's Greatest Japanese|accessdate=30 March 2015|date=19 February 2008}} Also, he worked to fight both SARS and avian flu.{{
Cite journal|title=Who will lead WHO?|year=2006|pmc=1633806|last1=Glusker|first1=A.|journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal|volume=333|issue=7575|page=938|doi=10.1136/bmj.333.7575.938}}
In 2006, Omi was a candidate for Director-General of the WHO but Margaret Chan was appointed instead. Between 2008 and 2009, he was part of a High-Level Taskforce on Innovative International Financing for Health Systems, which had been launched to help strengthen health systems in the 49 poorest countries in the world and was chaired by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and World Bank president Robert Zoellick.[https://web.archive.org/web/20131029193834/http://www.who.int/tobacco/economics/en_tfi_economics_final_task_force_report.pdf More money for health, and more health for the money] World Health Organization, 2009.
From 2009 until 2012, Omi taught public health at Jichi Medical University in Japan. He was the President of the 66th World Health Assembly in 2013.[https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/note-correspondents/2016-06-29/note-correspondents-secretary-general-appoints-global Note to Correspondents: Secretary-General Appoints Global Health Crises Task Force] Secretary-General of the United Nations, press release of 29 June 2016 In 2016, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the Global Health Crises Task Force, jointly chaired by Jan Eliasson, Jim Yong Kim, Margaret Chan and Helen Clark.
References
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Category:World Health Organization officials