China plans to nominate former Hong Kong health chief Margaret Chan as the next director of the World Health Organization, the government said Tuesday.

Chan is presently WHO assistant director-general for communicable diseases, a job that has put her on the front line in the struggle against bird flu and severe acute respiratory syndrome.

The U.N. health body will elect a new director-general in November to replce South Korea's Lee Jong-wook, who died suddenly in May at age 61.

A Hong Kong government statement welcomed Chan's nomination, saying she had "worked tirelessly to improve health services and promote the development of public health services" while serving as Hong Kong health director for nine years beginning in 1994.

There was no immediate comment from Chan.

At least one other candidate has already been proposed for the job, WHO Director for the Western Pacific Shigeru Omi, whose name was put forward by Japan.

Like Chan, Omi has been heavily involved in the fight against SARS and bird flu, which has killed at least 133 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.

Chan's official biography posted on the WHO Web site says she received her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and joined the Hong Kong Department of Health in 1978.

Chan joined WHO in 2003.