China is facing a surge of respiratory infections as it enters its first winter without strict COVID-19 measures since the pandemic began three years ago. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged China to share more details on the outbreak and to step up its response efforts. The reason for this increase is not clear, but some health experts think it is a normal and temporary consequence of easing lockdown restrictions. However, others are concerned about the unknowns surrounding the infections and their spread across the country, and compare the situation to the early stages of the pandemic.
Here are some key points to know about the current outbreak and what to expect:
What is pneumonia?
Pneumonia is an inflammation of air sacs in the lungs due to bacterial, viral or fungal infection.
Commonly affecting young children and older adults, the infection can be deadly. Deaths due to the illness are highest in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, according to a WHO report in 2022.
Symptoms tend to include chest pain, coughing, fever and fatigue. Although the illness takes a toll on one’s lungs and body, it can be treated with antibiotics when caused by bacteria. Recovery timelines typically last from a week to a month or more.
What do we know about China’s pneumonia outbreak so far?
- China’s National Health Commission announced a rise in respiratory diseases at a press conference on November 13.
- On Sunday, the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED), a surveillance system that tracks global infectious disease outbreaks, reported clusters of unexplained pneumonia in children in northern China. It is not clear if this report was based on the same data as the press conference.
- The ProMED report said that infections have spread in Beijing and the city of Liaoning in the northeast of the country, which are 800km (500 miles) apart.
- On Wednesday, the WHO requested China to provide more information on the recent outbreak, including “additional epidemiologic and clinical information, as well as laboratory results from these reported clusters among children”.
- No official numbers on the cases have been released yet, but hospitals in Beijing have seen a spike in patients, especially in the children’s wards. “One major hospital in the city has reported that on average every day, they are seeing about 1,200 patients enter their emergency room,” Al Jazeera correspondent Katrina Yu said from Beijing on Thursday.
- Schools in Beijing have also reported high rates of absenteeism, and some have even sent home entire classes for at least a week if some students are sick. They have also advised parents to be extra careful, Yu said.
- Health officials are also worried that winter will worsen the spread of the infections, after China’s national weather authority warned that the country’s cold temperatures will drop even lower starting on Thursday.
Why is pneumonia spreading in China?
China’s National Health Commission said that the rise in cases was due to the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. Health experts have also supported this explanation, saying it is similar to the “lockdown exit wave” that happened in countries like the United Kingdom.
China may be paying back an “immunity debt” after their long lockdown, “which must have drastically reduced the circulation of respiratory bugs and hence decreased immunity to endemic bugs”, Francois Belloux, director of University College London’s Genetic Institute, said in a statement posted on X.
He also said that based on current information, “there is no reason to suspect the emergence of a novel pathogen” and that Mycoplasma pneumoniae, the likely cause of most cases and a bacteria that usually affects younger children, is “generally fairly harmless”.
China’s authorities named mycoplasma as one of the circulating pathogens, along with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The WHO has asked China for more information on the recent trends of these microorganisms.
While a new pathogen cannot be ruled out until more information is available, the outbreak could also be caused by “an existing but newly mutated pathogen with modified characteristics and severity”, said Laith Abu-Raddad, professor of healthcare policy and research at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar.
“Both scenarios would be of global concern as pathogens will cross national borders sooner or later regardless of preventive measures,” he said.
