Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organisation has named her senior team to lead the health programmes of the organization.

In a statement issued in Accra on Friday, Dr. Chan announced a revised structure, including three new programmes in addition to the six the organization has already identified.

These included health development, health security, health systems capacity, evidence and information, partnership and performance.

The new senior team included Dr. Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, a Ghanaian who is the Deputy Director- General.

The statement said the WHO welcomed the news that circumcision in men helped to reduce their risk to the acquisition of HIV as was carried out in Kenya and Uganda.

The findings of the two trials supported the results of the South African Orange Farm Intervention Trial.

Together the three studies, which enrolled more than 10,000 participants, provide compelling evidence of 50 to 60 percent reduction in heterosexual HIV transmission to men.

“These finding are a very important contribution to HIV prevention. Male circumcision has major potential for the prevention of HIV infection”, said Kevin De Cook, Director of WHO HIV/AIDS Department, the statement said.

The statement said Dr.Chan also expressed her appreciation to the Canadian government and the Gates Foundation for their contribution towards research into new HIV vaccine research.

She said the Canadian government had pledged 111 million US dollars to the initiative while the Gate Foundation had also pledged 28 million US dollars.

Source: GNA