Waits of up to 13 hours in emergency rooms for doctor’s examinations, in hospitals with special tables and in hospitals with work areas for children who study and do their homework with IV fluids in their arms so as not to miss the “school tempo train”: news emerges Dozens of videos and photos from Chinese social media, especially affecting children, It captures scenes of overcrowded hospitals at the height of the current flu season, where multiple viruses are circulating simultaneously, contributing to high cases of respiratory infections.
A video from the hospital In Wuhan, the hospital provides tables for students receiving IV treatment, this year’s cold usually takes two to three weeks to recover, it is kind of sad to do this. pic.twitter.com/Nmdci3Gasf
— China in Pictures (@tongbingxue) 23 November 2023
Adenoviruses and bacteria, especially of the Mycoplasma pneumoniae genus, are responsible for the most serious symptoms, causing aggressive pneumonia with high fever but no cough. Symptoms that alarmed virologist Roberto Burioni: Explaining how the National Health Commission in Beijing reacted to this situation, the expert said, “I made the mistake of hesitating and trusting the Chinese at the beginning of 2020, I will not repeat it this time.” Considering what happened between 2019 and 2020 with the Covid emergency, it reduced the explosion in pneumonia cases. At the time, China had not initially provided details of Sars-Cov-2 to the WHO and had done everything to slow down further investigations by health experts in Wuhan. Burioni republished information published by ProMed, the International Society for Infectious Diseases (Isid) program for monitoring emerging diseases; This was the same program that first raised the alarm in 2019 about an unknown respiratory virus later renamed Sars-CoV-2.
The note raises the hypothesis that there may be a widespread outbreak of an undiagnosed respiratory disease in various parts of China, but adds that it is too early to predict its evolution. Of particular concern is the story of how it appeared in hospitalized children who had no symptoms other than a cough and high fever and “developed lung nodules.” In this context, Burioni notes: “Common viral infections in childhood do not cause pneumonia or ‘lung nodules’.
So are we really facing a new health danger? Little information is available at the moment: Today, November 23, Chinese health authorities ordered hospitals to intensify treatment of respiratory disorders, advising patients with mild symptoms not to go to already flooded hospitals, after the World Health Organization requested more information. patients.
The Covid epidemic, in which 122 thousand of the 6.9 million deaths recorded in the world occurred in China, started to spread from China at the end of 2019 and is still fresh in the minds of many people. Authorities took precautionary measures by reintroducing the obligation to wear protective masks for respiratory tract. Zero-Covid restrictions have been canceled at the end of 2022, and China is facing its first real flu season, as we have seen in the West, especially affecting minors with less immune defences.
This is called “immunity gap”, which occurs as a result of the general decrease in antibodies due to the protective measures taken in the last three years. Mycoplasma pneumonia, in particular, is a respiratory disease that is quite common in winter and autumn in northern China. “Compared with previous years, there have been more infections among children under 3 years old this year, but their disease condition shows no obvious signs of worsening,” said Tong Zhaohui, director of the Beijing Institute of Respiratory Medicine.
Pneumonia epidemic in China, what we know
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a well-known political commentator, noted on the Chinese social network Weibo how his nephew suffered a fever of up to 40 degrees. The stories are all very similar and highlight the tendency of parents to take their children to the hospital when the first symptoms appear. There are several factors contributing to the chaos; The lack of general practitioners in China makes hospitals the primary choice for medical consultations, even in non-emergency cases. There is also a strong belief that intravenous infusion therapy, based on both physiological fluids and medications, is sometimes irrationally effective. Experts in the Asian country explain how some clinics are profit-oriented and see intravenous injections as a way to earn more.
Chinese state media now encourages parents to only go to hospital if their sick child is under three months old, and advises treating older children at home unless the high fever lasts more than three days.
It is enough to look at China’s popular social network Weibo to understand the extent of the epidemic; here the hashtag “fire” recorded more than 350 million hits yesterday alone, that is, Wednesday, November 22.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
