According to his friends and local media, a Chinese military doctor who revealed the entire scope of the SARS pandemic when it ravaged Beijing in 2003 has passed away at age 91.
In an open letter to the official media that Jiang Yanyong sent in 2003, he charged the administration with purposefully underreporting the respiratory disease’s spread. Almost 800 people perished from the illness worldwide.
As is customary with prominent individuals who are politically sensitive, there was no mention of his death in the Chinese state media.
Jiang passed away in a Beijing military hospital, according to Hu Jia, a human rights activist who identified himself as Jiang’s close acquaintance.
Two other family friends of Jiang, Bao Pu and Bao Jian, posted on Twitter about his passing. Neither immediately replied to a request for comment.
‘Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who exposed the concealment of the SARS epidemic and was known for daring to tell the truth, passed away,’ Bao Pu wrote on Twitter.
Post Your Comments