Two high-profile Beijing health chiefs have been detained on suspicion of commercial bribery in a crackdown on medical corruption.
The director of the Pinggu district Public Health Bureau, Wang Xuewen , 46, and Pinggu district hospital director Yang Xiaodong , 45, were taken into custody last Wednesday, the China Times reported.
The report said Mr Wang, who ran the hospital during the 2003 Sars outbreak, allegedly received nearly 100,000 yuan in kickbacks from a sterilisation equipment company. Mr Yang, a hospital deputy director at the time, is also suspected of taking bribes.
The Ministry of Health commended Mr Wang for his efforts to combat Sars and this year promoted him to the health bureau's top job. Mr Yang, who succeeded Mr Wang as hospital chief, was awarded a prize by the Beijing Sars working group in 2003. The cases follow two similar cases in Guangzhou.
Luo Yaoxing , former director of the Guangdong Province Disease Control Centre's Immunisation Planning Institute, was sentenced to death in September, suspended for two years, for accepting more than 11 million yuan in bribes.
And another key anti-Sars figure, Luo Yilu, former director of the Guangzhou Municipal Hospital of Chest Medicine, has admitted taking 120,000 yuan and US$5,000 from medical instrument companies to help them win contracts.
