China gets WHO note seeking details after surge in respiratory illness among children
- WHO request follows reports about overcrowded fever clinics, hospital emergency rooms and children’s wards as multiple winter pathogens circulate
- Chinese officials and experts have so far attributed the surge in northern China to the lifting of Covid-19 measures
The request followed reports and social media posts about overcrowded fever clinics, hospital emergency rooms and children’s wards due to a surge in respiratory illness attributed to multiple pathogens.
The WHO cited China’s National Health Commission as saying on November 13 that the surge had been caused by pathogens including influenza, mycoplasma pneumoniae and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), all common pathogens behind winter respiratory disease outbreaks, as well as Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.
In its statement on Wednesday, the WHO said it had requested “additional epidemiologic and clinical information, as well as laboratory results” relating to clusters of “undiagnosed pneumonia in children in northern China”, as reported on Tuesday by media and the Programme for Monitoring Emerging Diseases or ProMED, the world’s largest publicly available system tracking infectious disease outbreaks.
“It is unclear if these are associated with the overall increase in respiratory infections previously reported by Chinese authorities, or separate events,” the WHO said, as it asked the Chinese government to provide more information about the circulation of the known pathogens.
Though Covid-19 is among the circulating pathogens, it has not been named as a top cause for the surge.
In September and October, the mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria was the major cause of respiratory diseases among children across China, with many hospitals reporting a spike in young patients seeking treatment.