CDC Speaks Out Over China's Pneumonia Outbreak as Concerns Grow

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is communicating with health officials in China as fears grow over an outbreak of infectious respiratory diseases that has caused clusters of pneumonia among children in the north of the country.

David Daigle, a spokesperson for the federal agency, told Newsweek that it would "continue to monitor the situation, collaborating with global health partners" over the increase in illness, and was "in touch with local health authorities and its country office in China."

The U.S. CDC has collaborated with its Chinese counterpart for over 30 years on a range of diseases that circulate among the global population, including influenza and tuberculosis.

Concerns were raised by the World Health Organization (WHO) last week that China was not sharing adequate information with the international community about the rise in respiratory illnesses, which had been reported in the media and on a global outbreak surveillance system—something it was previously criticized for in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier in the year, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus openly criticized China's lack of clarity over the immunological situation in the nation. Beijing has previously stressed it has been "open and transparent" about its data.

On Thursday, the WHO said in a statement that it had requested detailed epidemiological and clinical information, as well as lab results from the pneumonia clusters, but intimated it had yet to receive a response.

The week prior, officials from China's National Health Commission had attributed the increase in hospitalizations and cases of pneumonia to already understood diseases, such as influenza and COVID-19, rather than a novel pathogen.

Respiratory illness tends to increase through the winter as the cold leads to an increased spread of viruses and other infections thanks to lower immunity levels. China also recently lifted its pandemic restrictions, which it ascribed to the increase in circulation of transmissible illnesses.

However, Beijing's apparent opacity prompted some medical professionals to draw comparisons with the COVID pandemic, when it withheld information about the severity and extent of the outbreak and was accused of suppressing evidence of surges in deaths.

The following day, the WHO issued an update in which it said Chinese officials had provided the requested information, with data indicating that the elevated hospital admissions were due to mycoplasma pneumoniae—a bacterial infection that predominantly affects children and the elderly—respiratory syncytial virus, which causes cold-like symptoms, and viruses responsible for seasonal flu.

The health agency said that some of the increases were earlier in the winter season than had occurred historically, but that this was "not unexpected given the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, as similarly experienced in other countries."

Daigle said the CDC concurred that "initial reports indicate that there have been simultaneous increases in a number of known respiratory illnesses, resulting in a spike in hospitalizations."

The CDC did not respond to questions from Newsweek about the outbreaks spreading to the U.S., whether any pneumonia clusters had been detected in America, or whether it was considering screening people traveling from China for respiratory diseases.