On November 21, global disease tracking organization ProMED posted about hospitals in Northeast China that are overwhelmed due to an surge of “undiagnosed pneumonia” among children, particularly in China’s capital, Beijing, and nearby Liaoning. Some parents there are expressing concern that authorities may have concealed a broader epidemic. ProMED reported that “schools and classes were on the verge of suspension” due to illness clusters that involved young patients that lacked a cough being hospitalized. “They just have a high temperature (fever) and many develop pulmonary nodules” in their lungs, according to one Beijing resident.
On November 22 the World Health Organization (WHO) publicly asked China for more epidemiologic and clinical information regarding the outbreaks, and recommended that Chinese citizens “follow measures to reduce the risk of respiratory illness” such as vaccination(s) and “wearing masks as appropriate.” Although the WHO typically requests daily updates on the status of diseases that are circulating regionally from countries around the world, they typically don’t do so publicly; this may be an attempt to assuage fears prompted by the idea of yet another mysterious respiratory illness appearing in China, much like the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, first reported in hospitals in Wuhan in December 2019.
Officials from China’s National Health Commission (NHC) responded to concerns about the outbreaks on November 23 saying that they were paying close attention to the “diagnosis and treatment of susceptible children during the period of high incidence of infectious diseases,” and were guiding all localities “to strengthen overall planning and implement a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system,” according to the Xinhua press release.
The same day, the WHO issued an updated statement outlining the results of a teleconference that was held with Chinese health authorities, who informed them that although the affected regions were experiencing the high levels of cases being reported, the infections they were seeing were due to “known pathogens such as influenza, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),” according to the statement, which added that “mycoplasma pneumonia and RSV are known to affect children more than adults.”
“Chinese authorities advised that there has been no detection of any unusual or novel pathogens,” the statement included, adding that the increase in cases appears to have started sometime in mid-October.
“Some of these increases are earlier in the season than historically experienced, but not unexpected given the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, as similarly experienced in other countries,” the WHO statement continued, referring to situations such as the high levels of respiratory infections in children that were recorded across North America in late 2022.
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“Nodules in the lungs” reminds me of coccidioidomycosis, known in California as San Joaquin Valley fever, a fungal infection, but this pneumonia germ in China could be anything.
I read that some of these areas affected have some of the dirtiest air in China