Mysterious Outbreak Appears Again in China, Covid Trauma Reoccurring?
Mysterious Outbreak Appears Again in China, Covid Trauma Reoccurring?
Once again, China is hit by a mysterious disease outbreak. The outbreak struck China at a time when the country's citizens were experiencing their first winter without Covid019 restrictions.
For the record, Chinese citizens underwent the previous three winters (2020, 2021, 2022) under strict government restrictions to suppress Covid-19.
However, just after a winter without restrictions, bad news emerged in China with a new wave of respiratory diseases sweeping across the country.
This unusual increase in cases has prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to ask China to provide additional information regarding the outbreak and seek better response measures.
Although the cause of this trend is unclear, some health experts attribute this to the general and temporary impact of lifting lockdown restrictions. Unanswered questions about the infection and the countries where it spread have led other experts to liken it to the early days of the pandemic.
On November 22, WHO requested additional epidemiological and clinical information, as well as laboratory results from this reported group of children, through the mechanisms of the International Health Regulations. WHO also requested further information on current trends in the circulation of known pathogens including influenza, SARS-CoV-2, RSV, and mycoplasma pneumoniae, as well as the burden currently facing healthcare systems. WHO is also in contact with doctors and scientists through our existing technical partnerships and networks in China.
According to the ProMED report, infections have mushroomed in Beijing and the country's northeastern city of Liaoning, which are 800 km (500 miles) away.
Although official figures on the number of cases are not yet available, hospitals in Beijing are seeing an increase in the number of patients, especially in children's wards. The number of children reported suffering from pneumonia in China reaches 7,000 per day.
"One of the major hospitals in the city reported that on average every day, they receive about 1,200 patients entering the emergency room," Al Jazeera correspondent Katrina Yu reported from Beijing.
Schools in Beijing also reported high absenteeism rates, even canceling entire classes for at least a week if some students were sick and warning parents to be extra careful.
Health officials are also concerned that winter will worsen the spread of infections after warnings from China's national weather authority that the country's cold temperatures will drop further.
Read: Respiratory disease is endemic in China, WHO is investigating
WHO also recommends that people in China follow steps to reduce the risk of respiratory disease, including recommended vaccinations, maintaining distance from people who are sick, staying home when sick, undergoing tests and medical treatment as needed, wearing masks as appropriate, ensuring good ventilation, and regular hand washing.
What is pneumonia?
Pneumonia is inflammation of the air sacs in the lungs due to bacterial, viral or fungal infections.
Generally affecting young children and older adults, this infection can be deadly. Deaths from this disease are highest in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, according to a WHO report in 2022.
Symptoms tend to include chest pain, cough, fever, and fatigue. Although this disease has a detrimental effect on the lungs and body, it can be treated with antibiotics if it is caused by bacteria. The recovery period usually lasts from one week to a month or more.
Can it spread to Indonesia?
For those outside China, reports of the respiratory disease outbreak have brought back memories of the early days of the Covid pandemic, which first emerged as cases of mysterious pneumonia in the city of Wuhan in late 2019 and whose origins were never definitively established.
But unlike Covid, mycoplasma pneumoniae is a common and common germ that tends to cause new outbreaks every few years. And other viruses are also circulating, particularly RSV, meaning it's likely this winter that countries around the world will be dealing with a variety of pathogens.
However, mycoplasma pneumoniae can spread from person to person through infected people's respiratory droplets when they cough or sneeze. The disease can also spread through direct contact with nasal or throat fluids from an infected person, or indirectly through contact with objects that have recently been soiled by an infected person's secretions.
China Has Been the Origin of a Number of Outbreaks
The pneumonia outbreak in China is causing worldwide concern. Moreover, several previous outbreaks spread from that country. Quoted from the Ministry of Health, here are several outbreaks that originated in China: