Local authorities, however, are already being called upon to open more fever clinics and promote vaccine uptake among children and the elderly.
“Efforts should be made to increase the opening of relevant clinics and treatment areas, extend service hours and increase the supply of medicines,” said ministry spokesman Mi Feng.
He also advised people to wear masks and called on local authorities to focus on preventing the spread of illnesses in crowded places such as schools and nursing homes.
But his statement comes after a Beijing children’s hospital told state media CCTV that at least 7,000 patients were being admitted daily to the institution, exceeding capacity.
It followed up the largest paediatric hospital in nearby Tianjin reportedly receiving more than 13,000 children through its doors.
The concerning spread of illness comes as the nation enters its first full winter season since lifting strict COVID-19 restrictions last December.
Professor Francois Balloux, from the UCL Genetics Institute, has blamed China’s strict lockdown lowering immunity for the “exit wave” sweeping across the country.
While the US and UK also saw spikes in infections like RSV and flu after pandemic rules were lifted, China’s have been on a bigger scale.
Things escalated further last week when the World Health Organisation (WHO) were forced into a rare public intervention, formally requesting further information from Beijing on the infections.
The WHO said no unusual or novel pathogens had been detected in data provided by China, however.
But both China and the WHO have been accused of a lack of transparency in their initial reports on the Covid pandemic.
Pneumonia Illness; Cases surge in China
It’s almost exactly four years to the date when the first Covid-19 cases were detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in the latter months of 2019.
And commentators have already highlighted how the wave of sickness was eerily similar to the reports that emerged just prior to Covid, which China was accused of covering up.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) have already said we must keep an “open mind” about the cause of the mystery pneumonia.
According to internal accounts in China, health authorities have asked the public to take children with less severe symptoms to clinics and other facilities.
At the moment, though, WHO says there is too little information to properly assess the risk of these reported cases of respiratory illness in children.
Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak
Cases of pneumonia in children are rising in Europe as a second country reports an uptick in the deadly respiratory disease.
The Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL) has reported that 80 out of every 100,000 children in the country between ages five and 14 came down with pneumonia last week.
It comes after cases of the disease have surged in China, with reports emerging last week that children’s hospitals in Beijing and have been overrun by children with pneumonia.
The outbreak in the Netherlands is the biggest outbreak recorded by NIVEL in recent years.
In recent NIVEL records, pneumonia cases were most common at the peak of the 2022 flu season, with 60 recorded cases for every 100,000 children in the same age group.
Neither NIVEL nor the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands have given an explanation as to why pneumonia cases were increasing.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said last week that common winter infections — rather than any new pathogens — are behind the spike in hospitalisations in China.
China’s health authorities have linked the surge in hospitalizations since October to common pathogens like adenoviruses, influenza virus, and RSV.
Is this a new strain of Covid? Britons left in bed longer
These pathogens typically induce mild, cold-like symptoms. Nonetheless, the rise in pediatric admissions since May, especially in northern cities like Beijing, is predominantly attributable to Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
