Top scientist behind China’s 1st COVID-19 vaccine expelled from Parliament

Beijing: China’s top scientist, who developed the first inactivated COVID-19 vaccine at the height of the pandemic in the country in 2020, has been dismissed from Parliament for alleged corruption.

Yang Xiaoming, the chairman of China National Pharmaceutical Group’s vaccine subsidiary China National Biotec Group (CNBG), has been stripped of his membership in the National People’s Congress (NPC) due to serious discipline and law violations, official media reported here on Monday. The charge of serious discipline and law violations is a common euphemism for corruption under the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) disciplinary practice.

Yang, 62, is a veteran researcher who headed the CNBG - a vaccine subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm - and led a team that developed Sinopharm’s BBIBP-CorV vaccine, China’s first coronavirus shot approved for general use.

Coronavirus first surfaced in the Chinese city of Wuhan in March 2020 and later spread to the world, becoming the pandemic of the century and claiming millions of lives.