Saima Wazed, daughter of ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, has resigned as the World Health Organization’s regional director for South-East Asia, a day after member states recommended her termination over fraud allegations.
Wazed submitted her resignation on September 9, ending a tenure that had already been suspended for more than a year. She had been on unpaid administrative leave since July 2025 while WHO investigated claims that she misrepresented her academic credentials, mishandled a land deal in Bangladesh, and improperly claimed about $901 in travel expenses for a trip to China.
In her resignation letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Wazed wrote that she had “lost all trust and confidence in your leadership of WHO,” accusing him of preventing her from carrying out her duties. She also pointed to the financial toll of the standoff, saying that “after nearly one year without any remuneration,” her situation had become “untenable.”
Wazed has denied wrongdoing throughout the process. She has described the disputed travel claim as an administrative oversight and said she holds a legitimate honorary doctorate recognizing her autism advocacy work in Bangladesh. WHO, for its part, said only that “this matter has been handled through appropriate WHO processes in accordance with WHO’s regulatory framework.”
A tenure shadowed by her mother’s fall
Wazed took office in February 2024 for what was meant to be a five-year term leading WHO’s South-East Asia Regional Office, known as SEARO, which covers Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives, North Korea and Pakistan’s health cooperation with the region.
Her position became untenable months later when her mother, Sheikh Hasina, was toppled as Bangladesh’s prime minister in August 2024 following a mass uprising and fled to India, where she remains. Bangladesh’s interim government has since pursued corruption cases against several members of the former ruling family and its allies, and it pressed WHO to investigate and remove Wazed, at one point threatening to have Bangladesh relocated to a different WHO region altogether.
Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission filed fraud and forgery charges against her in March 2025. WHO placed her on leave four months later, and on September 8 a committee of member states recommended her formal dismissal, a step Wazed’s resignation preempted by a single day.
Why it matters beyond Dhaka
The episode is part of a broader pattern across South Asia, where family members and appointees of ousted leaders have faced fresh legal and institutional scrutiny once political protection disappears, a dynamic Pakistani readers will recognize from their own history of governments pursuing cases against predecessors’ relatives and allies.
It also leaves a leadership gap at an agency Pakistan deals with directly. As a SEARO member state, Pakistan works with the regional office on immunization campaigns, disease surveillance and outbreak response, including the kind of public health strains Wire Examiner has reported on in neighboring Bangladesh, where a measles outbreak has killed more than 1,000 people this year. A prolonged vacancy at the top of SEARO could slow coordination on regional health priorities at a time when several member states are managing active outbreaks.
WHO has set a timeline to replace her. Nominations for a new regional director are due by October 12, with candidates vetted in December and a vote among member states scheduled for January 24, 2027. Until then, the regional office is expected to operate under an interim arrangement while the fraud allegations against Wazed continue to work through Bangladesh’s courts.
