Saima Wazed, the World Health Organization’s Southeast Asia head and daughter of ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned on Wednesday, according to her resignation letter seen by Reuters, following fraud investigations by the UN agency and Bangladeshi authorities.
Wazed has denied the allegations. The WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Regional directors are among the world’s most influential health policy officials, with their duties including responses to outbreaks and emergencies and adapting WHO policies to local conditions. They are elected every five years by member states, which include Bangladesh and India in the Southeast Asia region.
The WHO placed Wazed, who took office as its Southeast Asia regional director in early 2024 for a five-year term, on unpaid administrative leave late last year. She was first sent on leave in July 2025 after Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission, under an interim government that replaced Hasina, filed charges against her in March that year alleging fraud and forgery. One of them said the WHO would announce nominations for the role on October 12, vet applications in December and hold elections on January 24.
The WHO accused Wazed of “committing financial fraud in relation to her travel to China” and of misrepresenting her academic credentials, according to a separate letter from her lawyers to the WHO on July 3, 2026, seen by Reuters. The WHO also alleged she had illegally acquired a plot of land in Bangladesh, according to her resignation letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Wazed said she acquired the land before she joined the WHO and was entitled to it under a Bangladeshi law that covered the families of the country’s independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Hasina’s father. “I was elected to the position of Regional Director in order to serve the countries in my region, which I had sincerely done,” Wazed said in her resignation letter to Tedros sent late on Wednesday. Last month, it said Wazed was on leave but declined to comment further about her case to maintain confidentiality. Two sources said earlier the U.N. agency was planning to formally remove Wazed.
