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New AIDS chief takes office

    JOHANNESBURG

    The new head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday promised to step up the fight against HIV/AIDS.

    Taking up his position of director general, Dr Lee Jong-Wook said he had charged the "newly strengthened" HIV/AIDS department to develop a worldwide plan to fight the disease by World AIDS Day, on 1 December 2003.

    Jong-Wook said in a statement: "We must scale up an integrated global HIV/AIDS strategy linking prevention, care and treatment, prioritising poor and under-served areas."

    He made a commitment to raise the number of people receiving HIV/AIDS drugs in the developing world to three million by 2005, some 10 times the present number.

    Jong-Wook replaces former Norwegian prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, at the helm of the WHO.

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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