The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced the sudden death on Monday of Director General Lee Jong-Wook, stunning ministers and senior officials from 192 countries at the opening of the agency's flagship annual assembly.
Lee died in the intensive care unit of Geneva's University Hospital at 7:43 am (0543 GMT) after undergoing emergency surgery Saturday to relieve a blood clot on his brain, the UN agency said in a statement. The 61-year-old South Korean had suffered a stroke while attending an official engagement, a WHO official said.
Spanish Health Minister Elena Salgado, who was chairing the WHO assembly in Geneva, made the announcement at the very beginning of the week-long meeting Monday.
"I regret to inform you that Dr Lee Jong-Wook, director-general of the World Health Organisation, died this morning," Salgado said, adding: "For all of us, this is very sad news."
The silence in the assembly hall at the United Nations' European headquarters was punctuated by gasps of surprise from ministers and officials, while many WHO staff were visibly fighting back tears. The assembly then observed a formal two-minute silence and resumed after a suspension.
"All of the staff of the World Health Organisation extend their most sincere condolences to Dr Lee's family. The sudden loss of our leader, colleague and friend is devastating," the agency said in a statement.
Lee, who worked his way from the field to the top of the UN health agency, was elected to lead the WHO in 2003 for a five-year term.
Recalling his "extraordinary" action in mobilising the global health community to combat the threat of avian influenza, Salgado led glowing public tributes to the South Korean official.
"He devoted himself to this organisation with enthusiasm. Under his direction the World Health Organisation became stronger and was able to provide an effective response to global health problems," she told the assembly.
"In addition he was, for us health ministers throughout the world, a person who was close, whom one could always consult, and he was always ready to give advice," Salgado added.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan mourned the sudden loss of "a cherished colleague and friend to me personally", praising his drive against avian flu and role as "a champion in the battle against a host of other public health threats".
US Secretary of Health Mike Leavitt told journalists that Lee had "embodied ... the spirit of co-operation".
Leavitt said Monday that the late WHO chief had told him about when, as a boy, Lee and his mother spent bitter winter months hunting for his father during the Korean War in the 1950s.
"Dr Lee experienced hardship at a very early age. My sense is that it was for that reason that he chose to devote himself to public service," Leavitt said.
Lee began his career at the WHO 20 years ago dealing with leprosy control, then polio eradication in parts of Asia.
In December 2000, he became head of the WHO's "Stop TB" campaign, helping to establish a global system to provide successful and affordable multi-drug therapy for millions of largely impoverished tuberculosis sufferers.
At the WHO's helm, Lee then made a bold, but also contested, bid to speed up distribution of anti-HIV drugs to poor countries.
The "Three by Five" scheme unveiled in December 2003 aimed to provide three million infected people in developing nations with antiretrovirals by the end of 2005.
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