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BEIJING: Jiang Yanyong, a Chinese language army physician who revealed the complete extent of the 2003 SARS outbreak and was later positioned beneath home arrest for his political outspokenness, has died, a long-time acquaintance and a Hong Kong newspaper stated Tuesday.
Jiang was 91 and died of pneumonia Saturday in Beijing, in line with human rights activist Hu Jia and the South China Morning Put up.
Information of Jiang’s loss of life and even his identify have been censored inside China, underscoring how he remained a politically delicate determine even late in life.
Jiang had been chief surgeon on the Individuals’s Liberation Military’s fundamental 301 hospital in Beijing when the military fought its approach by way of town to finish weeks of student-led pro-democracy protests centered on Tiananmen Sq., inflicting the deaths of lots of — presumably hundreds — of civilians.
In April 2003, because the ruling Communist Get together was suppressing information concerning the outbreak of the extremely contagious Extreme Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Jiang wrote an 800-word letter stating there have been many extra SARS instances than have been being formally reported by the nation’s well being minister.
Jiang emailed the letter to state broadcaster CCTV and Hong Kong’s Beijing-friendly Phoenix Channel, each of which ignored it. The letter was then leaked to Western media retailers that revealed it in its entirety, together with stories on the true extent of the outbreak and official Chinese language efforts to cover it.
The letter, together with the loss of life of a Finnish United Nations worker and statements by famend doctor Zhong Nanshan, compelled the lifting of presidency suppression, resulting in the resignations of each the well being minister and Beijing’s mayor. Strict containment measures have been imposed just about in a single day, serving to to restrain the unfold of the virus that had already begun showing abroad.
In all, greater than 8,000 individuals from 29 nations and territories have been contaminated with SARS, leading to no less than 774 deaths.
“Jiang had the conscience of a physician to individuals the sufferers first. He saved so many lives with that letter, with out thought for the results,” Hu instructed The Related Press.
Chinese language authorities later sought to dam media entry to Jiang, who retired with the rank of main normal. He turned down an interview with The Related Press, saying he had been unable to acquire the mandatory permission from the Ministry of Protection.
From 2004, Jiang and his spouse have been periodically positioned beneath home arrest for interesting to Communist leaders for a re-evaluation of the 1989 protests that is still a taboo matter. That recalled Jiang’s earlier experiences when he was persecuted as a rightist beneath Mao Zedong in the course of the Nineteen Fifties, ‘60s and ‘70s.
In 2004, Jiang was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service from the Philippines, thought-about by some an Asian model of the Nobel Peace Prize. Within the quotation, he was praised for having damaged “China’s behavior of silence and compelled the reality of SARS into the open.”
Jiang was prevented from leaving the nation and the award was collected by his daughter on his behalf.
Three years later, he gained the Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award given by the New York Academy of Sciences, however was once more blocked from touring.
Echoes of Jiang’s expertise have been heard in China’s method to the preliminary outbreak of COVID-19, first detected within the central Chinese language metropolis of Wuhan in late 2019.
A Wuhan eye physician, Li Wenliang, was detained and threatened by police for allegedly spreading rumors on social media following an try and alert others a couple of “SARS-like” virus. Li’s loss of life on Feb. 7, 2020, sparked widespread outrage in opposition to the Chinese language censorship system. Customers posted criticism for hours earlier than censors moved to delete posts.
Sympathy and the outpouring of anger of the therapy of Li and different whistleblowers prompted the federal government to vary course and declare him and 13 others martyrs.
COVID-19 has killed nearly 7 million individuals worldwide, together with an estimated 1.5 million in China, whose authorities has been accused of massively undercounting the true variety of deaths.
Jiang is survived by his spouse, Hua Zhongwei, a son and a daughter, in line with the South China Morning Put up.