COVID-19 special envoy David Nabarro dies at 75

David Nabarro, the World Health Organisation's special envoy for COVID-19 since the early stages of the outbreak in 2020, has died at the age of 75, the WHO said on Saturday.

"David was a great champion of global health and health equity, and a wise, generous mentor to countless individuals," World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the Briton in a post on X.

Nabarro was also co-director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College in London.

At the height of the pandemic in 2021, Nabarro called for more global cooperation and aid to poorer countries during a health crisis he said was "nothing like anything else we've ever seen in my professional life".

In 2017, he was a candidate for WHO director general, finishing second to Tedros in the election.