Countries Prepare for China's Pneumonia Outbreak to Spread

Children and their parents wait at an outpatient area at a children hospital in Beijing on November 23, 2023. The World Health Organization has asked on November 23, 2023, China for more data on a respiratory illness spreading in the north of the country, urging people to take steps to reduce the risk of infection. Several nations have taken steps to prevent the spread of illness, including Taiwan, India and Vietnam.

Several countries are taking steps to prepare against the spread contagious respiratory illnesses as China battles a concerning spike in pneumonia cases.

Many parts of China have been hit by the surprising surge in the illness, which has particularly impacted children. Northern provinces in China have experienced a jump in flu-like illnesses for five weeks straight since mid-October.

The fast spread of the COVID-19 in 2020 prompted extreme public health restrictions and quarantine measures, and several nations are on edge given the uptick in illnesses in China. The ailments have stretched China’s hospital system and are reminiscent of the coronavirus outbreak which originated in Wuhan in December 2019.

The outbreak has recently worsened, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), spurring nations like Taiwan, India and Vietnam to prepare in case the respiratory illness spreads further. The increase in cases, especially in children, prompted the WHO to request more information from Beijing last week.

More than 6 percent of hospital cases were attributed to flu-like illnesses in northern China, a steep increase over past years, according to a report by Focus Taiwan.

Newsweek has reached out to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by email for comment.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the acting director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, has since issued assurances that China’s spike in illnesses is not the same as the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said that China is battling an uptick in respiratory illnesses during their first full winter since relaxing COVID-19 restrictions, a similar ordeal to “what most countries dealt with a year or two ago.”

“This is not the same situation that we were in in December 2019 and January 2020,” she told health news outlet STAT in an interview on Friday.

Regardless of the WHO’s assurances, some countries are still preparing for the worst.

India’s Health Ministry recently urged its States and Union Territories to assess hospital preparedness measures amid the outbreak, according to a report by NDTV.

The country is taking steps to ensure that there are enough supplies available should a similar outbreak occur in India, such as assessing the availability of human resources, hospital beds, medication, oxygen, personal protective equipment and testing kits.

Last week, Vietnam requested more information about the illnesses from the WHO and the CDC. The nation’s General Department of Preventive Medicine also shared that it plans to propose potential prevention and control measures should the virus spread globally, according to a report by Vietnamnet Global.

A spokesman for China’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that the recent surge in acute respiratory illnesses was linked to the simultaneous circulation of several common pathogens, such as the influenza virus, rhinoviruses, and the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, the adenovirus as well as bacteria such as mycoplasma pneumoniae.

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