David Nabarro was appointed as United Nations (UN) System Senior Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza by Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, on September 25th 2005. He has been seconded to this position, at the level of UN Assistant Secretary-General, by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Prior to this move, Dr Nabarro had served for six years at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. He started in 1999 as head of the Roll Back Malaria Program, then was promoted, in 2000, to be Executive Director in the Office of the then Director-General. In 2002 he led the WHO cluster on Sustainable Development and Healthy Environments. In 2003 he was made head of the newly-created Health Action in Crisis group, and special representative of Director General Dr LEE, Jong-Wook.

David Nabarro qualified as a physician in 1973, then worked in the UK National Health Service. In 1976 he worked for two years as District Child Health Officer in Dhankuta District, East Nepal. He then moved to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), qualifying in public health. From 1990 he worked on the staff of the LSHTM Department of Human Nutrition, then was seconded back to Save the Children Fund (SCF) in 1982 as Regional Manager in South Asia, with responsibility for the work of SCF in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

In 1985 he joined the Liverpool School of Medicine as a Senior lecturer in International Community Health. He moved to the British Government's Overseas Development Administration (ODA) as a Strategic Adviser for Health and Population in East Africa, based in Nairobi in 1989.

David Nabarro took up the post of Chief Health and Population Adviser, at the ODA headquarters in London, in 1990, and was promoted to be Director of Human Development (as well as Chief Health Adviser) in the UK Department for International Development in 1997. He stayed in this role till he moved to the WHO in 1999.