WHO Wants More Answers From China on Pneumonia Outbreak
The World Health Organization (WHO) is "following up" with China about its ongoing wave of respiratory infections, an official said Wednesday.
The health agency is also seeking to learn more about antibiotic resistance in the country, said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO 's Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention.
Since mid-October, hospitals in northern China have been stretched thin amid a circulation of influenza, mycoplasma pneumonia , adenovirus, and other seasonal illnesses. Experts say China's stringent anti-COVID measures, which were dropped less than a year ago, left children's immune systems unprepared, resulting in the preponderance of younger patients.
"We are following up with the situation in China," Van Kerkhove said. She noted that according to the Chinese health authorities, influenza appears to be replacing mycoplasma pneumonia as the biggest driver of acute respiratory illness in the country.
The WHO officially requested more epidemiological and clinical data on the infections in northern China last week, noting they were occurring at a higher rate than in the same period during the last three years.
The WHO did not immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment.
"The NHC [China's health ministry] has had communication in a timely manner with the WHO. You may refer to relevant information that is readily available," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said when asked about the spike in hospital visits at Wednesday's press conference.
WHO's Covid-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove looks on during a press conference at the World Health Organization's headquarters in Geneva, on December 14, 2022. On November 29, 2023, Van Kerkhove said the WHO was again following up on the wave of respiratory illnesses sweeping through China. Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via"We're following up with our clinical networks and working with clinicians in China to better understand resistance to antibiotics, which is a problem across the world but is a particular problem in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia region," Van Kerkhove said Wednesday.
Huang Li-min, a pediatrician at National Taiwan University Children's Hospital, voiced concern about mycoplasma pneumoniae's mutations and the scope of antibiotic resistance in China , Taiwanese news outlet the China Times reported Monday.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae causes walking pneumonia, a generally mild respiratory infection prevalent among children. In China, there is widespread resistance to the frontline antibiotics used for its treatment.
A peer-reviewed study from a 2022 found rates of M. pneumoniae drug resistance have remained high since 2000—around 80 percent.
Chinese medical experts have warned a second peak of infections might occur among the country's elderly after family gatherings around the end of the year.