German health expert Wilfried Kreisel has been appointed director of the World Health Organization Center for Health Development in Kobe, the institute said Wednesday.
Before assuming his current post on New Year's Day, Kreisel served as executive director of health and environment at WHO headquarters in Geneva and as executive director of the WHO office at the European Union in Brussels.
The WHO Center for Health Development, better known as WHO Kobe Center, is one of two research institutes that operate under the WHO, a United Nations agency. The other is in Lyon, France.
Kreisel said he wants to make the WHO Kobe Center a centerpiece of innovative research on health to benefit people of developing and developed countries.