China appoints non-communist as new health minister

BEIJING, June 29 (Reuters) China has named a Paris-trained scientist and non-Communist Party member to the key post of health minister, the Xinhua news agency said today.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the rubber-stamp parliament, approved the appointment of Chen Zhu, 54, Xinhua said in a brief report.

His predecessor, Gao Qiang, took over the sensitive portfolio in 2005 from Vice Premier Wu Yi, who had doubled as health minister after the incumbent was sacked in April 2003, blamed for the official cover-up of a deadly outbreak of SARS or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

Xinhua said Chen was the second non-Party member to be given such a key appointment since the late 1970s following the naming of Wan Gang as science and technology minister in April.

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