KEY POINTS:
Former Cook Islands prime minister Sir Thomas Davis died in Rarotonga yesterday, aged 90.
Sir Thomas was taken to hospital two days ago, Cook Islands news services reported, but the cause of his death is not yet known.
He was prime minister between 1978 and 1987. He was knighted by the Queen for his services in 1981.
Sir Thomas, a graduate of Otago University in 1945, was the first Cook Islander to qualify as a doctor in New Zealand. He returned to the Cook Islands as Medical Officer and set about improving his country's health problems.
In 1952 he went to Harvard University in the United States and became a successful research physiologist, working at one stage for Nasa on the biological aspects of the space programme.
- NZPA
