“China declares state of emergency as outbreak overwhelms hospitals, crematoriums”. “Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic, China is faced with a new epidemic which is spreading rapidly” can we read on hundreds of publications posted on X since the start of 2025, by various conspiracy accounts or dubious media. Over the past ten days, several reports have reported a virus similar to the flu, called MPVh, which would spread at a speed similar to that of Covid-19. But experts assure us that the situation is in no way comparable. Which does not prevent the runaway, five years after the pandemic which, according to the WHO, caused between 6 and 16 million direct and indirect deaths, and left psychological after-effects everywhere across the globe.
Scary images… dated from Covid-19
At the end of 2024, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it would establish “active surveillance for pneumonia of unknown origin” as part of the development of its general prevention strategy. A figure cited at that time by the CDC could explain the media coverage surrounding the virus. According to the organization, MPVh is then responsible at the end of 2024 for 6.2% of positive tests for respiratory illnesses and 5.4% of hospitalizations for respiratory illnesses, surpassing Covid-19, the rhinovirus or adenovirus. “The MPVh positivity rate among children aged 14 and under has shown an increasing trend,” also indicates the head of the Chinese CDC, Kan Biao, responding to a question on “the intertwining of several infectious diseases” since the start of winter. Before specifying that “the scale and intensity of the spread of infectious respiratory diseases remain lower than last year”.
In the days that followed, images poured onto social networks in every way similar to the painful ones of the coronavirus pandemic in China: masked crowds, in panic, crowded into hospitals, contained by men in overalls. white… And for good reason: these images actually date from the Covid-19 period, according to checks by several media fact-checking services, including TF1 Info.
Present for decades and contracted several times in a lifetime
In truth, this virus that is plaguing the Internet is quite common. Apart from vulnerable people (young children, the elderly or people with weakened immune systems), the MPVh virus, for “human metapneumovirus”, generally causes a completely benign infection of the upper respiratory tract. It is transmitted by direct contact between people, or after contact with a contaminated surface. Unlike Covid-19, which was unknown when it emerged in humans, MPVh has been circulating for decades, which implies a certain level of immunity. “Almost every child will have at least one MPVh infection before their fifth birthday,” says Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, and many people will be infected several times during their childhood. life.
Without treatment or vaccines, public health advice for MPVh is similar to that for the flu, John Tregoning, professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London, told AFP. In the event of infection, you must “rest, drink and avoid transmitting it to others”, specifies the specialist. “Ventilating spaces well, covering your mouth when coughing, or washing your hands” limits the risk of infection, he adds.
Faced with the spread of false information and unfounded concerns, Kevin Griffis, spokesperson for the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), indicated earlier this year that the agency was monitoring the situation in China but did not consider the epidemic unusual, reports the American newspaper Washington post. “There is no risk in traveling to China,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry added last Friday. WHO spokesperson Margaret Harris also sought to reassure: “The reported levels of respiratory infections in China remain within a normal range”, that is to say in line with what is “expected for a winter season,” she said on Tuesday.