New illness spreading in China, WHO seeks info

World Health Organisation (WHO) has sought more information from Beijing on information about an outbreak of pneumonia in northern China that appears to be mostly affecting children, Al Jazeera reported.

The WHO made 'an official request for detailed information on an increase in respiratory illnesses and reported clusters of pneumonia in children', the United Nations health agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

There has been a rise of influenza-like illnesses in China compared with the same period in the previous three years when strict measures were in force as part of its zero-COVID strategy, which came to an end in December 2022.

The WHO noted that China's National Health Commission told a press conference earlier this month that there had been an increase in the incidence of respiratory diseases, attributing them to the lifting of COVID-19 measures and the spread not only of COVID-19 but pathogens such as influenza, mycoplasma pneumonia (a common bacterial infection which typically affects younger children), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), reported Al Jazeera.

ProMed, an online medical community that identified an illness circulating in Wuhan in 2019 that later became known as COVID-19, noted growing numbers of undiagnosed pneumonia media reports coming out of northern China.

FTV News, a Taiwanese media outlet, reported that children's hospitals in Beijing, Liaoning and other places in the north were 'overwhelmed with sick children', while some reports also noted that parents were questioning whether the authorities were 'covering up an epidemic', reported Al Jazeera.

ProMed has said definitive information on the 'concerning illness' was essential, the WHO has asked for more detail on the situation, Al Jazeera reported.

'WHO requested additional epidemiologic and clinical information, as well as laboratory results from these reported clusters among children, through the International Health Regulations mechanism,' the WHO statement said.

The COVID-19 epidemic was labelled as an unexplained pneumonia in late 2019, with the genetic code of the disease only being publicly shared in January 2020, after the first death.

WHO became 'deeply concerned' by the rapid spread and severity of the Covid virus and 'the alarming levels of inaction' in Beijing, consequently declaring a pandemic in March 2020.

A WHO team finally visited Wuhan to investigate the outbreak in early 2021, but the origins of the virus still remain unclear, Al Jazeera reported.