{"id":5322,"date":"2023-11-28T10:43:46","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T16:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5322"},"modified":"2023-11-28T10:43:50","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T16:43:50","slug":"whats-behind-chinas-mysterious-wave-of-childhood-pneumonia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/11\/28\/whats-behind-chinas-mysterious-wave-of-childhood-pneumonia\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s behind China\u2019s mysterious wave of childhood pneumonia?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-023-03732-w\">Nature<\/a> <strong>Scientists expected a surge in respiratory disease, but what is happening in China is unusual.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China is grappling with a surge in respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, in children. The World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that common winter infections \u2014 rather than any new pathogens \u2014 are behind the spike in hospitalizations. A surge of infections was expected in the country this winter, China\u2019s first without COVID-19 restrictions since the pandemic began in 2020. What is unusual, say epidemiologists, is the high prevalence of pneumonia in China. When COVID-19 restrictions were eased in other countries, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) mostly drove spikes in illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The WHO requested information, including laboratory results and data on recent trends in the spread of respiratory illnesses, from China\u2019s health authorities last week. This followed reports from the media and the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases \u2014 a publicly available system run by the International Society for Infectious Diseases \u2014 about clusters of \u201cundiagnosed pneumonia\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a 23 November\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/emergencies\/disease-outbreak-news\/item\/2023-DON494\">statement<\/a>, the WHO said that China\u2019s health authorities have attributed the rise in hospitalizations since October to known pathogens, such as adenoviruses, influenza virus, and RSV, which tends to cause only mild, cold-like symptoms. However, an increase in children being admitted to hospital since May, particularly in northern cities such as Beijing, is mainly due to\u00a0<em>Mycoplasma pneumoniae<\/em>, a bacterium that infects the lungs. It is a common cause of \u2018walking pneumonia\u2019, a form of the disease that is usually relatively mild and doesn\u2019t require bed rest or hospitalization, but that is hitting children hard this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/China is grappling with a surge in respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, in children. The World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that common winter infections \u2014 rather than any new pathogens \u2014 are behind the spike in hospitalizations. A surge of infections was expected in the country this winter, China\u2019s first without COVID-19 restrictions since the pandemic began in 2020. What is unusual, say epidemiologists, is the high prevalence of pneumonia in China. When COVID-19 restrictions were eased in other countries, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) mostly drove spikes in illness.  The WHO requested information, including laboratory results and data on recent trends in the spread of respiratory illnesses, from China\u2019s health authorities last week. This followed reports from the media and the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases \u2014 a publicly available system run by the International Society for Infectious Diseases \u2014 about clusters of \u201cundiagnosed pneumonia\u201d.  In a 23 November statement, the WHO said that China\u2019s health authorities have attributed the rise in hospitalizations since October to known pathogens, such as adenoviruses, influenza virus, and RSV, which tends to cause only mild, cold-like symptoms. However, an increase in children being admitted to hospital since May, particularly in northern cities such as Beijing, is mainly due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacterium that infects the lungs. It is a common cause of \u2018walking pneumonia\u2019, a form of the disease that is usually relatively mild and doesn\u2019t require bed rest or hospitalization, but that is hitting children hard this year.\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\" PhS oXvtPTq UaUvAme S Ul\"><!--  PhS oXvtPTq UaUvAme S Ul --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nature Scientists expected a surge in respiratory disease, but what is happening in China is unusual. China is grappling with a surge in respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, in children. The World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that common winter infections \u2014 rather than any new pathogens \u2014 are behind the spike in hospitalizations. A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5323,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5322\/revisions\/5323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}