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 Sunday.
Recent clusters of respiratory infections are caused by an overlap of common viruses such as the influenza virus, rhinoviruses, the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, the 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 on local authorities to open more fever clinics and promote vaccinations among children and the elderly as the country grapples with a wave of respiratory illnesses in its first full winter since the removal of COVID-19 restrictions.
"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 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.
The WHO earlier this week formally requested that China provide information about a potentially worrying spike in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia in children, as mentioned by several media reports and a global infectious disease monitoring service.
The emergence of new flu strains or other viruses capable of triggering pandemics typically starts with undiagnosed clusters of respiratory illness. Both SARS and COVID-19 were first reported as unusual types of pneumonia.
Chinese authorities earlier this month blamed the increase in respiratory diseases on the lifting of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Other countries also saw a jump in respiratory diseases such as RSV when pandemic restrictions ended.
The WHO said Chinese health officials on Thursday provided the data it requested during a teleconference. Those showed an increase in hospital admissions of children due to diseases including bacterial infection, RSV, influenza and common cold viruses since October.
Chinese officials maintained the spike in patients had not overloaded the country's hospitals, according to the WHO.
It is rare for the U.N. health agency to publicly ask for more detailed information from countries, as such requests are typically made internally. WHO said it requested further data from China via an international legal mechanism.
According to internal accounts in China, the outbreaks have swamped some hospitals in northern China, including in Beijing, and health authorities have asked the public to take children with less severe symptoms to clinics and other facilities.
WHO said that there was too little information at the moment to properly assess the risk of these reported cases of respiratory illness in children.
Both Chinese authorities and WHO have been accused of a lack of transparency in their initial reports on the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.
MPs debated the first non-confidence motion of the fall House of Commons sitting today, seeing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre push once again for a snap election. But with votes secured to keep them afloat, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals were quick to turn the discussion into a referendum on the Conservative alternative.
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Donald Trump flubbed the name of Charlottesville, Virginia, while going off script during a speech on Tuesday otherwise focused on economic policy, slamming U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for lying about 'Charlottestown.'
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A former Memphis police officer who has pleaded guilty to violating Tyre Nichols’s civil rights testified in tears Tuesday, saying he left Nichols’s young son fatherless, that he was sorry and that he wishes he had stopped the punches.
Prince Harry said today's youth is in the midst of an 'epidemic' of anxiety, depression and social isolation due to negative experiences online, as he brought his campaign to help children and their parents navigate cyberspace to this week's Clinton Global Initiative.
Donald Trump flubbed the name of Charlottesville, Virginia, while going off script during a speech on Tuesday otherwise focused on economic policy, slamming U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris for lying about 'Charlottestown.'
Japan's top diplomat asked China to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens there after the fatal stabbing of a Japanese schoolboy, and demanded a crackdown on what she called 'groundless, malicious and anti-Japanese' social media posts that threaten children's safety.
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An ordinary day on the job delivering mail in East Elmwood quickly turned dramatic for Canada Post letter carrier Jared Plourde. A woman on his route was calling out in distress.
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Environment Canada says southwestern Ontario could get up to 55 mm of rain by Wednesday morning.
A man and woman in Saskatoon who had two kilograms of methamphetamine seized from a home are going back to trial after having their acquittals overturned.
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We've all had neighbours we didn't like, but two people from Sault Ste. Marie have been awarded more than half a million dollars for the 'extreme' behaviour of the people who lived next to them.
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A 49-year-old Sudbury woman who was killed in a tragic collision with a police boat June 7 on Nepewassi Lake was told to remain in a residence on an island until police returned to pick her up.
Budweiser Gardens will be going the way of the Skydome – London’s largest entertainment venue will officially be called Canada Life Place as of October 11.
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A model for the future of affordable housing neighbourhoods is rapidly taking shape in St. Thomas this week.
Three construction workers are being praised for their actions that police in Barrie say likely prevented an armed man from fleeing before being taken into custody.
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An Uber driver was handed a 12-month driving ban on Tuesday following a collision that injured a pedestrian and killed a labrador retriever in Barrie.
Windsor police officers are asking for the public’s help identifying and finding a suspect after a convenience store robbery in south Windsor.
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A man swimming across the Detroit River from Windsor to Detroit was rescued by a mail boat, according to the J.W. Westcott Company.
A man and a woman from Nanaimo, B.C., are facing more than two dozen charges after police seized four guns and several hundred grams of illicit drugs following a complaint about drug trafficking in the city's downtown core.
Former British Columbia chief coroner Lisa Lapointe has emerged from retirement to throw her weight behind a BC Green's campaign pledge to expand safer supply of opioids and other drugs to deal with the province's deadly overdose crisis.
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To make higher education an easier step to take for Indigenous students, the University of Lethbridge is dropping some fees for those applicants.
Authorities arrested a man from Pincher Creek after shots were fired near a home on the Blood Tribe First Nation.
A former Lethbridge pastor who bilked millions out of hundreds of southern Albertans has appealed his conviction and sentence.
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A federal offender who was last seen in Sudbury is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for allegedly breaching his statutory release conditions.
The Crown's key witness in the sexual assault trial against former Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard will take the stand in a northern Ontario courtroom Tuesday afternoon following the judge's instructions to the jury.
Newfoundland and Labrador sponsored a minor football team in England, now they’re about to play one of the biggest clubs in European soccer.
Newfoundland and Labrador's chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
A 16-year-old biennial event aimed at fostering business in the country's eastern Arctic and northern regions has been cancelled indefinitely as a dispute unfolds between Inuit in Canada and a Labrador group claiming to share their heritage.
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