Hong Kong's health minister resigned following a public outcry over poor handling of last year's SARS outbreak, a move that is likely to help ease pressure on the unpopular administration.
A report into the handling of the SARS outbreak, published on Monday by Hong Kong's Legislative Coucil, criticised Secretary for Health Yeoh Eng-kiong and other health officials.
"Dr Yeoh, in order to give expression to the spirit of accountability, has tendered his resignation," Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa told a news conference.
The resignation comes within a week of a huge anti-government rally to demand more democracy in Hong Kong.
Yeoh was the third minister to quit under public pressure in just under a year. Last July, Hong Kong's security and financial secretaries resigned after a big march in protest against an anti-subversion bill and poor governance.
Hong Kong was one of the areas worst-hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
The virus emerged in southern China in late 2002 and soon spread to Hong Kong where it killed almost 300 people and infected nearly 1800.
The outbreak cost the city billions of dollars in lost sales and pushed the economy into its third recession in six years.
People travelling out of the city unknowingly took the disease to other parts of the world. Eventually, SARS spread to 30 countries, infected more than 8,000 people and killed about 800.
When the disease first spread in Hong Kong, Yeoh repeatedly denied it was doing so.
The Hong Kong legislative inquiry report said Yeoh's handling of the epidemic was "not satisfactory" in some aspects and he "did not show sufficient alertness" to danger when an outbreak of atypical pneumonia was first reported in China's Guangdong province.
"Room for improvement"
Tung said Yeoh had done his job "adequately" and would stay on for up to three months during the search for a successor.
"There's no evidence in the course of fighting this unknown disease, officials have not given their best or there's any problem with their integrity, even though there may have been room for improvement for what they've done," Tung said.
The resignation of Yeoh, who over the past year had repeatedly refused to step down, came in the wake of mounting pressure from SARS victims and families of those who died, and from Hong Kong's main political parties.
Political parties applauded the resignation and analysts said it should ease pressure on the city's unpopular Beijing-backed government.
"I believe the resignation will help ease the pressure on the government. It can now say that its accountability system works and it has now positively responded to people's demands," said Anthony Cheung, a public and social administration professor.
But some relatives of SARS victims were still angry.
"He shouldn't be forgiven. He should have resigned earlier," said Sit Pui-yuen whose mother died of SARS last year.
Kwok Sin-hung, whose wife died of SARS said: "My wife has died and can't be brought back to life. Yeoh's resignation won't heal my wounds. My family has already been torn apart."
Families of victims have accused health officials of being slow to warn the city's 6.8 million residents about the outbreak and of not acting quickly enough to contain it, resulting in its wide spread between February and May last year.
Critics say when the virus first surfaced just across the border from Hong Kong, little was done to find out more about it and to prevent it from filtering in.
The Legislative Council report was the third inquiry into the government's handling of the SARS outbreak. Two previous reports, commissioned by the government and the Hospital Authority, did not single out any officials for blame.
