Chinese authorities have warned of a more deadly virus than coronavirus sweeping across Asia which has infected thousands and killed hundreds within weeks.
The Kazakhstan’s Health Ministry have confirmed there has been over 32,000 confirmed cases of a deadly “unknown pneumonia” which has also claimed 451 lives between 29 June and 5 July.
The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan said the death rate is far higher than coronavirus, as 1,772 deaths were recorded in the first half of 2020, which included Chinese citizens
Chinese nationals have been warned of the new unknown deadly pneumonia and have been advised to protect themselves in the same way as they did with coronavirus.
Chinese embassy officials in Kazakhstan gave a stark warning, “The death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus.
“The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus.”
Saul Kisikova, health care department chief in Kazakhstan told state media, Kazinform, “Some 300 people diagnosed with pneumonia are being hospitalised every day.”
The chief sanitary officer Ayzhan Esmagambetova further warned that the mortality rate increased four times in June, and they were not diagnosed with coronavirus,
Dr Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization (WHO) said, “We’re looking at the actual testing and the quality of testing to make sure that there haven’t been false negative tests for some of those other pneumonias that are provisionally tested negative.”
Dr Ryan added that many pneumonia cases were likely to be coronavirus and “just have not been diagnosed correctly.”
He said, the WHO are working with local authorities to review X-rays and look at the pattern of pneumonia cases to see if they were consistent with Covid-19.
He noted that “While we believe that many of these cases will be diagnosed as Covid-19, we keep an open mind,” and said a WHO team are already in Kazakhstan.
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