A US congressman with a potential conflict of interest and France's Aids ambassador are finalists in the race to head the United Nations-backed Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and malaria, the largest multilateral fund tackling the world's leading killer diseases.

Jim Colby, the retiring Republican congressman for Arizona and an important US supporter of the Global Fund, is one of five candidates on a shortlist to be circulated today to the organisation's board members. Another is Michel Kazatch-kine, former non-executive chairman of the $10bn-strong Global Fund.