A new large-scale concern? Wednesday November 22, The World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement sending “an official request to China for detailed information on an increase in respiratory illnesses and pneumonia outbreaks reported among children”, indicates his message on the social network.
This official request followed a declaration by the Chinese authorities on November 13: a wave of contamination of this type of disease would affect the northeast of the country, causing heavy occupation of hospitals. Among the pathogens named as responsible for this hospital tension, the WHO cites in particular “mycoplasma pneumoniae”, the number of cases of which is increasing rapidly in China… And in France.
Generally mild infections
Known since 1944, this bacteria is not, in most cases, dangerous. Like the flu or Covid-19, it is caught when an infected person coughs or sneezes, which “creates respiratory droplets containing the bacteria”, details the American federal agency of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Mycoplasma pneumoniae generally causes a rather benign infection similar to a cold: tracheobronchitis.
This contamination of the lungs affects most of the respiratory system: “the throat, trachea and lungs,” specifies the CDC. “After 1 to 4 weeks”, the infected person shows several symptoms: fever, a feeling of fatigue, a sore throat, even a “cough which slowly gets worse and which can last for weeks or months”, completes the American agency. In children under 5 years old, it can also cause sneezing, a blocked nose or even “vomiting or diarrhea”.
But mycoplasma pneumoniae is also one of several microorganisms known to cause more serious lung infections in certain cases: bacterial pneumonia. The bacteria is even the main cause of this type of diagnosis in children. And this corresponds to the main symptoms observed in China, detailed in a press release from the international monitoring system on emerging diseases ProMED.
A rapid rise in cases in China and France
Based on a report on Chinese television, the organization reported on Tuesday, November 21, that high fever is “the main symptom observed in children”, without cough, but that “many develop pulmonary nodules”. That is, lumps on the lung which are “usually a sign of a bacterial infection, rather than a viral one”, according to epidemiologist Paul Hunter, quoted by the specialized British media New Scientist.
Although pneumonia caused by mycoplasma pneumoniae is quite rare, well known and treated by taking antibiotics, this has not prevented an explosion in the number of cases in China. Although no deaths have been reported, Chinese authorities report “an increase in outpatient consultations and hospitalizations of children due to mycoplasma pneumoniae since May,” reports the WHO. This epidemic even pushed the country to include mycoplasma pneumoniae in its reinforced surveillance of various respiratory diseases for the first time, in mid-October.
An increase in cases of pneumonia linked to the bacteria which also seems observable in France. From November 13 to 19, Santé Publique France thus noted an increase of 36% SOS Médecins interventions for lung diseases and infections in children under 15 years old. If these cases of “pneumonia” are not necessarily linked to the bacteria mycoplasma pneumoniae, pediatrician Andreas Werner indicated to the daily The cross that this bacteria is the subject of an “alert” at the national level.
A next global pandemic?
Although the pediatrician judges that the germ is “rarely very nasty, so we are absolutely not in the same situation as during Covid”, the increase in cases of this type of respiratory illness has revived fears of a potential new pandemic. , four years after the appearance of Covid-19 in China.
Beyond describing hospitals “overwhelmed with sick children”, the ProMED monitoring system still qualified this epidemic as an “undiagnosed” respiratory infection on Friday, as a precaution. It was ProMED which detected the first cases of Covid-19 at the end of 2019. China, for its part, reiterated that it had detected “no unusual or new pathogen”.
The Chinese authorities also cite other reasonable causes of the reported hospital tension: the arrival of the cold season, the abandonment of anti-Covid restrictions and the spread of other diseases which are not unknown, such as flu, bronchiolitis… and Covid-19. Despite the uncertainties, the WHO and experts are therefore not leaning, at this stage, towards a new virus as dangerous as Covid-19.