China, pneumonia boom: the hypothesis of a “new microorganism”. Is the nightmare coming back?

The World Health Organization has urged the Chinese population to “follow measures to reduce the risk of respiratory illnesses” given the rise in reported cases among children in the north of the country. “The WHO has made an official request to China to obtain detailed information on the increase in respiratory diseases and cases of pneumonia among children”, writes the Organization in a statement on social media. The WHO requested additional information on recent trends in the circulation of known pathogens, including influenza, Sars-Cov-2 (the Covid-19 virus), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the most frequent cause of lower airway pathology in infants and Mycoplasma pneumoniae, as well as the degree of overcrowding in the healthcare system. The preventive measures requested are vaccination, distancing from sick people, staying at home in case of contagion, regular hand washing and wearing masks.

Four years after the Covid pandemic, therefore, a health emergency has emerged again in several Chinese cities. The first “alert” came from ProMed, a publicly accessible surveillance system that monitors epidemics of human and animal diseases around the world, which issued a notification talking about “undiagnosed pneumonia” in children, with high fever and traces in the lungs, but no cough. At the end of 2019, it was ProMeda itself that raised the first alarm about an unknown respiratory virus, later renamed Sars-CoV-2. According to the Asian press, the most affected cities are Beijing and Liaoning and hospitals are already overwhelmed with cases.

The boom in respiratory infections among children in China “is worrying” in the eyes of Arnaldo Caruso, president of the Italian Society of Virology (Siv-Isv). Having “many children hospitalized with bouts of pneumonia is certainly not normal – he explains – and even without restrictions due to Covid, we had never seen a similar event before. Mycoplasma pneumonia, or other known bacterial or viral agents, do not cause similar selective epidemics in children. We will see how the situation evolves, but we will probably have to start thinking that something new is being prepared.” A new microorganism? «Probably yes», responds the specialist: «An emerging pathogen – he supposes – or re-emerging, with greater aggressiveness than the original strain».

“Fortunately, at the moment it does not appear that these pneumonias are associated with high mortality”, highlights the number one Italian virologist, professor of Microbiology and Clinical Microbiology at the University of Brescia, director of the Microbiology Laboratory of Asst Spedali Civili.