David Nabarro, the UN's flu co-ordinator, is the front-runner to head the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, the $10bn international financing agency set up to tackle the world's most lethal infectious diseases.

Mr Nabarro tops a new short-list of three candidates drawn up ahead of a board meeting early next month to select a new executive director, after the previous appointments process collapsed acrimoniously without agreement last autumn. Andrew Jack, London