GENEVA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - David Nabarro, a Briton who heads the United Nations' fight against bird flu, is the front-runner to lead a body dedicated to combating diseases including AIDS. Nabarro was considered the strongest of three shortlisted candidates to head the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Fund sources said on Thursday. The Fund raises and distributes billions of dollars to fight the killer diseases. The other two candidates are French AIDS envoy Michel Kazatchkine and Alex Coutinho, head of Uganda's AIDS Support Organisation. The Fund board, made up of representatives of donor and aid-receiving governments, as well as non-governmental groups, is due to select a successor for Britain's Richard Feachem at a meeting in Geneva next Thursday. A selection committee has evaluated the three nominees and ranked "Nabarro first, Kazatchkine second and Cotinho third," one well-placed Fund source said. But this did not mean that Nabarro, a medical doctor and a former senior official at the World Health Organisation, was guaranteed the job. In November, the board failed to agree on a candidate from among an earlier shortlist of five people, which had also included Kazatchkine. Launched with the backing of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2002 to boost funding to fight neglected diseases, the Fund has become the largest global supporter of malaria and tuberculosis projects and among the top three for funding programmes against AIDS. Since its launch in 2002, the Global Fund has committed $7 billion in grants to 136 countries. AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria kill more than 6 million people a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Annan appointed Nabarro in 2005 to spearhead global efforts to try to prevent bird flu from sparking a pandemic in which millions of people could die.
