An expert fears that China is grappling with a mysterious “newly mutated” disease outbreak, as its hospital overfill with child patients.
This unknown respiratory illness has swept across the country, drawing comparisons to the early days of Covid.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeking more information from China about this situation.
While some health experts attribute the crisis to the common aftermath of lifting isolation restrictions, others are raising concerns about the source of this respiratory illness, which many are calling an “unknown pneumonia”.
The National Health Commission in China reported an increase in respiratory diseases on November 13. Following this, the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED), responsible for flagging infectious disease outbreaks, reported large numbers of undiagnosed pneumonia in children in the Northern region. ProMED then reported a surge of cases in the North East, Beijing, and the city of Liaoning.
READ MORE: China hospitals at breaking point as new pneumonia strain causes 24/7 queues
In Beijing, children’s wards are seeing a surge in cases. Al Jazeera reported: “One major hospital in the city has reported that on average every day, they are seeing about 1,200 patients enter their emergency room.” However, exact numbers are not available, but many kids are missing school for a week or more. Parents are being urged to stay alert.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is growing worried and has asked China for more details about the disease spreading among children. They want “additional epidemiologic and clinical information, as well as laboratory results from these reported clusters among children”.
Health officials think the dropping temperatures might be part of the problem. It’s going to keep getting colder this week, which could make the disease spread more.
China’s National Health Commission also thinks it might be because restrictions were lifted for the first winter since Covid started. Officials agreed, saying a “lockdown exit wave” could be causing this, like what happened in the UK after Covid.
Francois Belloux, a top dog at University College London’s Genetic Institute, said that the country might be paying an “immunity debt” because of how they handled Covid.
He explained that by locking down the whole country, they might have stopped other bugs from spreading and people’s immunity to them could have gone down.
Belloux also said that there’s no reason to think a new bug has popped up. He thinks it’s probably Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacteria that usually affects kids but is mostly harmless.
The Chinese authorities agree with him and have also named this bacteria as one of the culprits. They’ve also pointed fingers at the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
But, the World Health Organization (WHO) is asking China for more information because the disease could be caused by a new bug. Laith Abu-Raddad, a professor at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar, said the outbreak might be due to “an existing but newly mutated pathogen with modified characteristics and severity.
Both scenarios would be of global concern as pathogens will cross national borders sooner or later regardless of preventive measures.” He warned that this would be a global concern because bugs can cross borders no matter what we do to stop them.
Chinese officials have stressed the importance of enhancing disease surveillance and boosting health system capacities.
They’ve reinstated precautions and systems used during the Covid pandemic following advice from The WHO to be thorough about public health. In Liaoning Province, medical facilities are under immense strain, with long lines forming outside Dalian Children’s Hospital, as reported by ProMED, where people wait for up to two hours.
The disease seems to primarily affect those under 18, but the disabled, elderly, and pregnant individuals could also be at risk. However, it’s agreed that there’s a lack of information about the outbreak, and more details are urgently needed.