WHO's Covid-19 special envoy David Nabarro dies at 75

7:50 am on 27 July 2025

By Harshita Meenaktshi, Reuters

This photograph taken on December 2, 2021, shows a sign of the the World Health Organization (WHO) next to theirs headquarters, in Geneva. - The WHO has issued stern warnings on the dangers of vaccination apathy and the European Union put mandatory jabs on the table as the United States registered its first case of the fast-spreading Omicron strain of the coronavirus. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP

David Nabarro, the World Health Organization'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 Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of the Briton in a post on X.

Deeply shocked and saddened by the passing of our dear friend, colleague and @WHO Envoy David Nabarro.

David was a great champion of global health and health equity, and a wise, generous mentor to countless individuals. His work touched and impacted so many lives across the… pic.twitter.com/xc6zrxpLs7
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) July 26, 2025

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.

- Reuters