COTONOU, Benin (AP) — As Ebola continued to burn its way through three West African countries, the World Health Organization on Wednesday elected its next Africa director, Botswana doctor Matshidiso Moeti, a longtime veteran of the U.N. agency.

The announcement was made by Senegalese health minister Awa Marie Coll Seck, who chaired the vote during this week's meeting of WHO Africa's regional committee in Benin.

"I'm very happy and proud of the way this process was conducted," Moeti said after being declared the winner. "As regional director, I will work with every country in all the regions of our continent to improve the health of our populations."

WHO Africa's outgoing leader, Angolan doctor Luis Sambo, was criticized for initially bungling WHO's response to the biggest Ebola outbreak in history.

Moeti previously led the epidemiology department in Botswana as well as its AIDS department and joined WHO Africa as a regional adviser for women's and adolescent health. She was previously head of WHO's Malawi office and was WHO Africa's deputy regional director until March.

WHO's Africa office is widely acknowledged to be the agency's weakest regional office, among five others which are all largely autonomous and do not answer to the Geneva headquarters.

In an internal draft document obtained by the Associated Press last month, WHO blamed its staff in Africa for initially botching the response to Ebola, describing many of its regional staff as "politically-motivated appointments" and noted numerous complaints about WHO officials in West Africa.

Whoever is chosen as Africa's new WHO head probably won't have a big role in ending Ebola since the U.N. has already taken charge of control efforts, but the new director could be key to preventing similar disasters in the future.

A British-built treatment center opened outside the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown and began accepting patients on Wednesday. The facility includes a special 12-bed clinic to treat infected health care workers that will be staffed by British Army medics.

The charity Save the Children is running the main treatment center, where more than 200 medical staff, including a contingent of Cuban doctors, will care for up to 80 patients.

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Sarah DiLorenzo in Dakar contributed to this report.