Head of new central level disease prevention, control agency announced

China announced on Wednesday that it has appointed Wang Hesheng, the incumbent vice-minister of the National Health Commission, as head of a new central-level disease prevention and control agency.

Wang, director-general of the newly-established administration, had been appointed a standing committee member of the Communist Party of China Hubei Provincial Committee during the height of the domestic COVID-19 outbreak early last year.

The National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control – the official name of the new agency – also will be administered by three deputy director-generals, according to a ciruclar released on the website of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

They are Chang Jile, director of the commission's Disease Prevention and Control Department; Shen Hongbing, president of Nanjing Medical University in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province and Sun Yang, head of the commission's Health Emergency Response Office.