According to friends and local media, a 91-year-old Chinese military doctor who uncovered the entire magnitude of the 2003 Beijing SARS pandemic has died.
In 2003, Jiang Yanyong wrote to the official media accusing the government of underreporting respiratory sickness. The sickness killed 800 persons globally.
As with politically sensitive public people, Chinese official media did not mention his death.
Hu Jia, a human rights campaigner and Jiang’s lifelong acquaintance, told Reuters he died at a Beijing military hospital.
Bao Pu and Bao Jian, family friends of Jiang, tweeted about his death earlier this week. Reuters received no response.
“Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who uncovered the SARS pandemic deception and was recognized for daring to tell the truth, passed away,” Bao Pu tweeted.
Sources told the South China Morning Post he died of pneumonia on Saturday. Reuters couldn’t confirm.
Jiang died during China’s parliament’s annual sessions, a politically sensitive time when Beijing tightened security.
Jiang, a Beijing military hospital head surgeon from an affluent banking family, was a lifetime Communist Party member.
The Chinese government sacked numerous officials, including the health minister, after his 2003 letter accusing authorities of concealing SARS.
In 2009, Jiang stated he spent months under house arrest and was barred from traveling abroad after criticizing the Communist Party leadership over the 1989 violent suppression of pro-democracy protests, a taboo issue in China.
World Health Organization estimates that SARS infected 8,908 persons globally and killed 774.
China accounted for most cases and fatalities.
China has also been criticized for not providing enough data regarding the COVID-19 epidemic, which began in late 2019 in Wuhan, central China, and its spread throughout China.
China has denied similar allegations, calling them politically motivated.
