Indian American doctor Dave Chokshi has been appointed New York City`s heath commissioner to lead the next phase of city`s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Appointing him, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Tuesday that Chokshi was a "leader and a visionary" who was "ready to fight this fight" against the pandemic as city girds itself against the risk of a second flare up and the oncoming flu season.

Chokshi was the chief population health officer at the city`s Health + Hospitals Corporation, which de Blasio said is the nation`s largest health network.

He said that Chokshi had been involved in city`s fight against the pandemic right from the beginning and stepped up when the city needed to build out tens of thousands of beds to meet the crisis.

Chokshi is a former White House Fellow when Barak Obama was the president under the programme that brings promising young graduates to work in the president`s office and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University.