Halfdan Mahler was director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1973 to 1988. He was born in Vivild, Jutland, Denmark, the youngest of seven children. His father, Magnus Mahler, was a Protestant clergyman. He studied medicine at the University of Copenhagen and qualified in 1948.
From 1948 to 1951 he worked in tuberculosis institutions in Sweden and Denmark and during this period directed the Red Cross anti-tuberculosis campaign in Ecuador. He then joined WHO and spent almost ten years in India as a senior WHO officer attached to the National Tuberculosis programme. From 1961 to 1969 he was chief of the tuberculosis unit at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. He was then appointed as director of the project systems analysis in Geneva and in 1970 he became an assistant director general.
In 1973 he was elected as director general of WHO. During his tenure he reoriented the organisation, away from a focus on single diseases towards an emphasis on tackling health inequalities and promoting basic health services worldwide. In 1976 he delivered a key speech at the World Health Assembly, launching his ‘Health for all by 2000’ goal. He was re-elected for two successive five-year terms in 1978 and 1983.
One of his achievements was the adoption of the ‘model list of essential drugs’, designed to curb aggressive marketing of medicines in developing countries. In 1980 he was able to declare the eradication of smallpox after a worldwide immunisation programme which had started in 1966.
After leaving WHO, he became director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, a post he held until 1995.
In 1957 he married Ebba Fischer-Simonsen, a geriatric psychiatrist. They had two sons.
RCP editor
[World Health Organization Essential medicines and health products Dr Halfdan Mahler www.who.int/medicines/areas/nextgen_essentialmeds/next_mahler/en/ They – accessed 30 May 2019; World Health Organization Director-General’s office Dr Halfdan T Mahler Director-General www.who.int/dg/mahler/mahler/en/ – accessed 30 May 2019; The Lancet 2017 389 (10064) 30 www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32604-6/fulltext – accessed 30 May 2019; BMJ 2017 356 333 www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.j333 – accessed 30 May 2019]