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Canada
ChinaDiplomacy

This Chinese-Canadian scientist helped cure Ebola. Now she’s at the centre of a viral security drama

  • Dr Qiu Xiangguo was an award-winning researcher before she and her husband were escorted out of Canada’s most secure microbiology lab
  • Mystery surrounds the couple amid a two-year police investigation, a shipment of viruses to Wuhan, internet conspiracy theories and a wall of official silence

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Qiu Xiangguo, seen in protective gear at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory, is at the centre of a controversy over alleged security breaches at the Winnipeg facility. Photo: Rideau Hall Foundation
Ian Youngin Vancouver

She has been hailed as a groundbreaking researcher who helped cure Ebola, bringing accolades and worldwide attention to Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory.

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For the past two years, however, Dr Qiu Xiangguo has been receiving a different kind of scrutiny, after being escorted off the Winnipeg, Manitoba lab premises with her biologist husband, Dr Cheng Keding, for security reasons.

Exactly why the scientists were ejected from the lab in 2019 was a mystery.

But snowballing speculation turned into an avalanche after the Covid-19 pandemic broke out a few months later, with elements of their situation seemingly tailor-made for these times of high tension between Beijing and the West.
Scientists Qiu Xiangguo and husband Cheng Keding were both escorted out of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019. They left the lab’s employment in January 2021. Photo: Rideau Hall Foundation
Scientists Qiu Xiangguo and husband Cheng Keding were both escorted out of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019. They left the lab’s employment in January 2021. Photo: Rideau Hall Foundation

These include the couple’s Chinese origins, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into possible policy breaches at the lab, and that Qiu sent live viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology four months before her ouster.

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The sense of mystery reached the Canadian parliament last month, with the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) refusing to discuss the matter under heated questioning from frustrated MPs at a hearing of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.

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