China has appointed Shen Hongbing as the new head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), replacing Gao Fu who has retired from his post due to age, according to a statement by the China CDC on Tuesday.

Shen, deputy director of the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control and a well-known epidemiologist, succeeds Gao Fu, who led the China CDC from 2017 until his retirement, according to the China CDC.

Since his appointment as head of the CDC in 2017, Gao Fu has fulfilled his responsibility and made great contributions in promoting the disease prevention and control in China, especially leading all CDC staff to fight against COVID-19, Wang Hesheng, head of the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, said at a meeting on Tuesday.

Gao mentioned at the meeting that he will continue to contribute to disease prevention and public health as a scientist and technician, expressing best wishes to the new leading group appointed by the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control.

Gao Fu has led a team involved in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine with Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products. The Recombinant Novel Coronavirus Vaccine they developed is proved to be safe and effective.

In 2014, Gao went to the "front line" in Sierra Leone to help fight Ebola. Gao is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the European Molecular Biology Organization and of the African Academy of Sciences.

According to Wang, as a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and former president of the Nanjing Medical University, Shen Hongbing is a suitable candidate to be the CDC's director.

The CDC has been put under management of the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control, which was created in Beijing on May 13 in 2021 as a vice-ministerial agency under China's National Health Commission.