No.2 For Dr. WHO

TAKE TWO ASPIRIN AND CALL AGAIN IN 1998. THAT IN effect was the Rx prescribed for detractors by pharmacologist Hiroshi Nakajima as he vowed to strive for “harmony” during a second five-year term as director-general of the World Health Organization. His task appears daunting. In an atmosphere of distinct bureaucratic disharmony, Nakajima, 64, emerged victorious from an 18-13 vote of the executive board of WHO, an arm of the U.N., thanks largely to Third World support — and despite a determined campaign waged against him by the U.S. and the European Community.

The WHO disburses a biennial budget of $1.7 billion on programs ranging from malaria inoculations to AIDS prevention. Nakajima, his critics charge, has run it in an autocratic manner, but Japan made his reappointment a matter of national pride and applied inordinate pressure to secure it. In May, Nakajima must still win approval, usually pro forma, from the organization’s 168-nation assembly.