WHO officials said on Tuesday that Harsh Vardhan, Union Health Minister of India, who is at the forefront of India’s battle with Coronavirus is set to take charge as the chairman of WHO Executive Board on May 22. 

Dr. Harsh Vardhan is an Otolaryngologist and is the incumbent minister at Ministry of Science & Technology, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Earth Sciences

Currently, Dr. Hiroki Nakatani of Japan is the chairman of the 34 member Executive Board of WHO.

The proposal to appoint India's nominee as the chairman of the executive board was signed unanimously by the 194- nation World Health Assembly on Tuesday, an official said on condition of anonymity.

Vardhan's taking over the post seems like a formality as the WHO's South-East Asia group had already decided last year that India would be elected to the executive board for a three-year term beginning May.

The post of the chairman is held by rotation for one year among regional groups. It was decided last year that India's nominee would be the executive board chairman for one year starting from Friday.

The appointment is not a full-time assignment the minister will only be required to preside over as the chair over the Executive Board's meetings, the officials said.

The Executive Board of WHO is composed of 34 individuals qualified in the field of health, each one designated to their respective member states elected to do so by the World Health Assembly for a term of three years.

The Board holds it’s meetings twice a year. Once in January, which is the main meeting followed by a shorter one in May, immediately after the Health Assembly.

The primary functions of the Board are to give effect to the decisions and policies of the Health Assembly, to advise it, and generally to facilitate its work.

On Monday, while addressing the 73rd World Health Assembly via video conferencing, Vardhan said that India had taken all the necessary steps well in time to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. He also stressed on the fact that the country has done well in dealing with the disease and that he is confident of doing better in the months to come.

India is set to take over the chairmanship amidst growing calls including that of US President Donald Trump, to investigate how the Coronavirus originated in China's city Wuhan.