Official photo of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. (Courtesy of State of California Department of Justice)

In a statement, Biden says he wants his health team to "bring the highest level of integrity, scientific rigor, and crisis-management experience to one of the toughest challenges America has ever faced -- getting the pandemic under control so that the American people can get back to work, back to their lives, and back to their loved ones."

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7  -- U.S. President-elect Joe Biden announced some nominations and appointments of his health team on Monday.

In a release, Biden said he's nominating Xavier Becerra, attorney general of California, for secretary of health and human services.

If confirmed, Becerra, a former U.S. congressman from California, will be the first Latino to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which will oversee the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the Democrat said he has tapped Vivek Murthy to serve as U.S. surgeon general, a post the research scientist held between 2014 and 2017, and picked Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The president-elect also said he has appointed Marcella Nunez-Smith, an expert on health care disparities, to serve as COVID-19 equity task force chair, while naming Jeff Zients, former director of the National Economic Council, coordinator of the COVID-19 response and a presidential counselor.