Yuen graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong in 1981 with distinction in Medicine. Initially trained as a surgeon, he switched successfully to a physician and, subsequently, a clinical microbiologist. In the outbreak of avian influenza virus H5N1 in 1997 in Hong Kong, Yuen was the first to report in Lancet about the unusual clinical severity and high mortality of infected patients, which could be identified by the in-house molecular test at his laboratory. During the global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003, he led his team in the discovery of the SARS coronavirus, being honoured as "Asian heroes of the year" in April by Time Asia magazine. Subsequently, he found the natural reservoir of SARS coronavirus like virus in Chinese horseshoe bat and renewed the interest of bats as the source of novel microbes causing emerging infectious diseases. His research laboratory has also identified over 40 new viruses, 9 bacteria, 2 fungi and 2 parasites of which some are suspected or confirmed pathogens: coronavirus HKU1, bat coronavirus HKU2 and others, bovine and porcine hokovirus and Laribacter hongkongensis in fish and human. Yuen is currently the Chair of Infectious Disease at the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong. He co-directs the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Disease of China in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of PRC. He was the founding co-director of the Hong Kong University-Pasteur Research Centre. His over 700 publications in peer reviewed journals including Lancet, New EnglandJournal of Medicine, Science, Journal of Virology and PNAS, mainly pertain to novel microbe discovery and agents of emerging infectious diseases.
2019-20 coronavirus
Yuen is involved in the research on SARS-CoV-2. Yuen has been active in communicating with the press on this issue. He was an early advocate of wearing masks even by healthy individuals, citing asymptomatic cases and a large number of virus strands in saliva of an infected person. Yuen’s information videos on preventing the spread of the virus are published on the website of the University of Hong Kong. Yuen caused controversy when he and co-author David Lung published an op-ed article titled "The pandemic originated from Wuhan and the lessons from 17 years ago have been forgotten." in the Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao, stating that the trading and consumption of wild animals was a result of the inferior culture of Chinese people. The authors later retracted the article and apologised for the statement. On an interview with the BBC, Yuen accused the Chinese authorities of covering up the scale of the virus. He claimed that he alerted health officials on January 12 to suspected human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2. This warning wasn't made public until January 19. He also accused the authorities of destroying evidence, "When we went to the Huanan supermarket, of course, there was nothing to see because the market was clean already. So, you may say that the crime scene is already disturbed because the supermarket was cleared we cannot identify any host which is giving the virus to humans," said Professor Yuen.
