The World Health Organization is "following up" with China about its ongoing wave of respiratory infections, said Maria Van Kerkhove, acting director of the WHO's Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention, on Wednesday.
The official added that the global health body is also seeking to learn more about resistance to antibiotics in the East Asian country.
Since mid-October, hospitals in northern China have been stretched thin amid the circulation of influenza, mycoplasma pneumonia, adenovirus, and other seasonal pathogens. Experts say China's stringent anti-COVID measures, which were dropped last December after nearly three years, left children's immune systems unprepared, resulting in the preponderance of younger patients this fall.
"We are following up with the situation in China," Van Kerkhove said. She noted that according to information provided by the Chinese health authorities, influenza appears to be replacing mycoplasma pneumonia as the biggest driver of acute respiratory illness in the country.
The WHO had not responded to Newsweek's request for comment by publication time.
"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 added.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae causes walking pneumonia, a generally mild respiratory infection prevalent among children. In China, there is widespread resistance to the frontline antibiotics used to treat it.
A peer-reviewed study from 2022 found rates of M. pneumoniae drug resistance in the country have remained highsince 2000—around 80 percent.
Huang Li-min, a pediatrician at National Taiwan University Children's Hospital, has voiced concern about mycoplasma pneumoniae's mutations and the scope of antibiotic resistance in China, Taiwanese news outlet the China Times reported Monday.
The WHO officially requested more epidemiological, clinical, and lab 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 said the information Beijing provided did not suggest a new pathogen had emerged.
"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.
Chinese medical experts have warned a second peak of infections might occur among the country's elderly after they are exposed at family gatherings during upcoming holidays.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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