GENEVA, Switzerland
The World Health Organization has asked China for more data on respiratory illnesses spreading in the north of the country, urging people to take steps to reduce the risk of infection.
Northern China has reported an
increase in "influenza-like illness" since mid-October when compared
to the same period in the previous three years, the WHO said.
"WHO has made an official
request to China for detailed information on an increase in respiratory
illnesses and reported clusters of pneumonia in children," the UN health
body said in a statement on Wednesday.
China's National Health
Commission told reporters last week that the respiratory illness spike was due
to the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions and the circulation of known pathogens,
namely influenza and common bacterial infections that affect children, including
mycoplasma pneumonia.
The Chinese capital of
Beijing, located in the north of the country, is currently experiencing a cold
snap, with temperatures expected to plummet to well below zero by Friday, state
media said.
The city has "entered a
high incidence season of respiratory infectious diseases", Wang Quanyi,
deputy director and chief epidemiological expert at the Beijing Center for
Disease Control and Prevention, told state media.
Beijing "is currently
showing a trend of multiple pathogens coexisting", he added.
And at Beijing's Capital
Institute of Pediatrics' Children's Hospital on Thursday, AFP journalists saw
crowds of parents and children dressed in winter clothes.
A parent surnamed Zhang
accompanied her coughing nine-year-old son and said he had fallen ill with
mycoplasma pneumonia -- a pathogen that can cause sore throats, fatigue and
fever.
"There are really a lot
of children who have caught it recently," she said. "Of course that
worries me!"
Li Meiling, 42, had brought
her eight-year-old daughter, who she said was suffering from the same type of
pneumonia.
"It's true that a lot of
children her age are ill with this at the moment," she told AFP.
But she said she was "not
particularly worried" about the WHO announcement.
"It's winter, so it's
normal that there are more cases of respiratory illnesses. It's due to the
season."
On November 21, media and
public disease surveillance system ProMED reported clusters of undiagnosed
pneumonia in children in northern China.
The WHO said it was unclear if
ProMED's report was related to the authorities' press conference and that it
was seeking clarification.
The agency has also
"requested additional information on recent trends in the circulation of
known pathogens, including influenza, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that gives rise to
Covid-19), RSV affecting infants and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, as well as on the
degree of overcrowding in the health system," the statement added.
In the meantime, it urged
people to take preventative measures, including getting vaccinated, keeping
distance from sick people and wearing masks.
The WHO gave no indication of
China's response to the request for more information.
And China's foreign ministry
did not respond to a request for comment from AFP on Thursday.
Over the course of the
Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO repeatedly criticised Chinese authorities for their
lack of transparency and cooperation. More than three years after cases were
first detected in Wuhan, heated debate still rages around the origins of Covid-19.
Scientists are divided between
two main theories of the cause: an escape from a laboratory in the city where
such viruses were being studied and an intermediate animal that infected people
at a local market.
Earlier this year, WHO experts
said they were sure that Beijing had far more data that could shed light on the
origins of Covid, and called it a moral imperative for the information to be
shared.
A team of specialists led by
the WHO and accompanied by Chinese colleagues investigated China in early 2021,
but there has not been a team able to return since and WHO officials have
repeatedly asked for additional data.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus has stressed that getting to the bottom of the mystery could help
avert future pandemics.
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