David Nabarro, the World Health Organization Special Envoy for COVID-19 Prevention and Response, was recognized for his work with the title Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George during an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on March 3, 2023. Nabarro died on Friday at age 75.
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Victoria Jones via Pool/Getty Images
Sir David Nunes Nabarro, a physician, international public health advocate and one of the early experts helping with the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, passed away on Friday at the age of 75.
“David was a great champion of global health and health equity, and a wise, generous mentor to countless individuals,” WHO director-general Tedros Ghebreyesus wrote on social network X on Saturday. “His work touched and impacted so many lives across the world.”
Nabarro, the son of a British member of Parliament, was a trained physician who spent his early career working in Iraq, South Asia and East Africa, in various nonprofit and academic positions in nutrition and child health.
But that’s just one part of his legacy. He helped coordinate the World Health Organization’s response to the Indian earthquake and tsunami in 2004. In epidemiology, he worked to contain AIDS, malaria and bird flu.
