A surge in respiratory illnesses in China, particularly among children, has reportedly swamped paediatric units in city hospitals, while authorities have urged calm, attributing it to a post-lockdown wave of illness. Many hospital wards are full, according to state and other media reports in China. The Global Times reported on Tuesday that the Beijing Children’s hospital was receiving up to 9,378 patients a day and had been at full capacity during the past two months. It also said outpatient clinics, paediatric clinics, and respiratory departments at several Beijing hospitals were…
Tag: Infectious diseases
Respiratory infection clusters in China not caused by novel virus, says health ministry
A surge in respiratory illnesses across China that has drawn the attention of the World Health Organization is caused by the flu and other known pathogens and not by a novel virus, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday. Recent clusters of respiratory infections are caused by an overlap of common viruses such as the influenza virus, rhinoviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and adenovirus, as well as bacteria such as mycoplasma pneumoniae, which is a common culprit for respiratory tract infections, a National Health Commission spokesperson said. The ministry called…
WHO requests details about respiratory illness clusters in parts of China
The World Health Organization has asked China for details about a rise in respiratory illnesses that has been reported in northern parts of the country, particularly among children. Epidemiologists have warned that as China heads into its first winter since the lifting of zero-Covid restrictions, natural levels of immunity to respiratory viruses may be lower than normal, leading to an increase in infections. Several countries, including the US and the UK, experienced large waves of respiratory viral infections in the first winter after Covid restrictions were lifted as people had…
China fuels global surge in mpox cases as LGBTQ+ stigma hampers response
China is fuelling a global surge in mpox cases, accounting for the majority of new cases reported in September, according to the World Health Organization. The number of weekly cases reported globally increased by 328% in the week to 10 September, data shows. Most of that rise came from China, where more than 500 new cases were reported in August. The WHO said China was experiencing “sustained community transmission” of the virus, which was first detected as an imported case in September last year. Mpox was previously known as Monkeypox…
No direct proof Covid-19 stemmed from Wuhan lab leak, US intelligence says
US intelligence agencies found no direct evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic stemmed from an incident at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, a report declassified on Friday said. The four-page report by the office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI) said the US intelligence community still could not rule out the possibility that the virus came from a laboratory, however, and had not been able to discover the origins of the pandemic. “The Central Intelligence Agency and another agency remain unable to determine the precise origin of the Covid-19 pandemic,…
Covid lab leak theory should not be ruled out, top Chinese scientist says
The former director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) has said the lab leak theory for the origins of Covid-19 should not be discounted. George Gao, an internationally respected virologist, also said another branch of the Chinese government had investigated the lab leak theory – the first such acknowledgment that some kind of official investigation took place. “They haven’t found wrongdoing,” he said. Gao served as the CDC head until July 2022, putting him at the forefront of China’s investigations into the origins of Covid. The virus…
China’s Covid whistleblower in Wuhan reportedly freed after three years
A Chinese citizen journalist who disappeared three years ago while reporting on the Wuhan coronavirus lockdown – and was later revealed to have been detained by authorities – has reportedly been released. Fang Bin was let out of detention on Sunday, according to multiple media reports that cited people close to the family. The reports said he had gone to Beijing, where some of his family live, before being sent back to Wuhan on Monday morning, where he remains under strict supervision. A Chinese human rights monitoring group said neither…
Newly released Chinese Covid data points to infected animals in Wuhan
Newly released data from early in the Covid-19 pandemic has offered a crucial insight into the outbreak’s origins, suggesting that Covid-infected animals were present at a market in Wuhan and could have been a “potential source of human infections”. A pre-print report on Monday by a team of international researchers fleshed out analysis of previously unseen genomic samples collected by Chinese scientists at the Huanan market in Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic. Initially leaked last week after a meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee studying…
Australia news live: total fire bans in parts of Victoria, NSW and SA amid autumn heat blast
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New data links Covid-19’s origins to raccoon dogs at Wuhan market
Newly released genetic data gathered from a live food market in Wuhan has linked Covid-19 with raccoon dogs, adding weight to the theory that infected animals sold at the site started the coronavirus pandemic, researchers involved in the work say. Swabs collected from stalls at the Huanan seafood market in the two months after it was shut down on 1 January 2020 were previously found to contain both Covid and human DNA. When the findings were published last year, Chinese researchers stated that the samples contained no animal DNA. That…