Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe did non know he had been appointed World Health Organisation goodwill ambassador in addition to would anyway convey rejected the purpose that has since been rescinded, province media reported Tuesday.
The WHO reversed its determination on sun to accolade the 93-year-old the honour to assist struggle illness subsequently widespread uproar unopen to the globe.
"The president was quite surprised that he had been appointed a goodwill ambassador yesteryear the WHO," Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba told The Herald newspaper.
"There was nothing, whether verbal or written, from the WHO intimating that WHO wished to brand the president a goodwill ambassador inward honor of noncommunicable diseases," he added, proverb Mugabe learned nearly it from the news.
"He was non going to oblige the invitation had it come upward his way anyway."
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a sometime Ethiopian wellness government minister who took accuse of WHO United Nations way inward July, rescinded his determination to appoint Mugabe goodwill ambassador for non-communicable diseases inward Africa subsequently facing vehement criticism.
The twenty-four sixty minutes menstruation of the month angered international rights campaigners in addition to opposition parties, who also accuse Mugabe of violent repression, election rigging in addition to presiding over the country's economical ruin.
Zimbabwe's healthcare system, similar many of its populace services, has collapsed nether Mugabe's authoritarian regime, amongst most hospitals out of stock of essential medicines in addition to supplies, in addition to nurses in addition to doctors regularly left unpaid.
Charamba said it would convey been an "awkward" province of affairs for WHO to appoint Mugabe equally goodwill ambassador, equally Republic of Zimbabwe is a transcend producer of tobacco.
Mugabe, who has been inward ability since 1980, is inward increasingly frail wellness in addition to makes regular trips abroad for medical treatment.
AFP