The World Health Organization (WHO) has requested additional information from Beijing regarding an outbreak of mysterious pneumonia in northern China, primarily affecting children.
In a statement on Wednesday, the WHO officially asked for detailed information on the rise in respiratory illnesses and reported clusters of pneumonia in children.
China has seen an increase in cases of influenza-like illnesses compared to the same period in the past three years, during which strict measures were implemented as part of its zero-COVID strategy.
This policy was abruptly abandoned in December 2022.
The WHO highlighted that China’s National Health Commission stated in a press conference earlier this month that there has been a rise in respiratory diseases, attributing them to the lifting of COVID-19 measures and the spread of not only COVID-19 but also pathogens such as influenza, mycoplasma pneumoniae (a common bacterial infection that typically affects younger children), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
Earlier this week, ProMED, an online medical community that raised questions in late 2019 about an unknown illness circulating in Wuhan that later became COVID-19, reported an increasing number of media reports about clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia among children in northern China.
Link from www.aljazeera.com