2023-11-23 17:01:14
The World Health Organization (WHO) has demanded “detailed information” from China about a surge in respiratory illnesses in the north of the country. She referred to reports on the observation platform Promed that many children in the north were infected with undiagnosed pneumonia. The WHO office in China called the request a “routine check.”
Gustav Theile
Business correspondent for China based in Shanghai.
Parents wondered whether the authorities wanted to sweep the epidemic under the carpet, Promed said earlier this week. Since then, in contrast to the corona pandemic, the government appears to be on a communications offensive. Children’s hospitals are overcrowded, the state news agency Xinhua said. In large facilities there are long waiting times and the risk of further infections, the National Health Commission told Xinhua. Parents should therefore take children who only have mild symptoms to smaller facilities. Authorities circulated reports attributing the outbreak primarily to “Mycoplasma pneumoniae,” a bacterium that causes bacterial pneumonia.
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The authorities also attributed the epidemic to the end of the corona restrictions, which were suddenly lifted a year ago. Now various diseases, including Covid, became more widespread. International experts emphasized that there is no reason to suspect that this is a new virus. Not all symptoms are compatible with mycoplasma. Rather, there could be a number of triggers. After years of strict Corona measures, many children lack immunity to some germs. This is also supported by the fact that only a few adults became infected. Similar phenomena also occurred in other countries. The situation is made worse by the fact that many children are resistant to antibiotics. Up to four out of five children do not respond to the most common medication, a doctor in Chaoyang said, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
A comment from Hinnerk Feldwisch-Drentrup Published/Updated: Recommendations: 26 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 9 Jochen Stahnke Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 18
The wave of illness is not limited to the north. There were also warnings from Guangzhou near Hong Kong. The Shanghai authorities published handouts. According to reports, all the beds in the relevant unit in the children’s hospital at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai were occupied. Doctors at a Shanghai children’s hospital reported to the FAZ that the situation was particularly bad at the beginning of November, with an average waiting time of up to three hours. Things have been getting better since mid-November. Mycoplasma is the most widespread. The number of cases has changed its rhythm since the beginning of Corona and appears more frequently in every season.
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