Amid China Pneumonia Scare, India Urges States To Review Measures

New Delhi:

Amid a spike in respiratory illnesses among children in northern China, the government has initiated a review of the preparedness measures to combat such illnesses. The Centre said it is closely monitoring the situation and stressed that there is no need for any alarm.

The Health Ministry has urged States and Union Territories (UTs) to conduct an immediate assessment of their public health and hospital preparedness measures. The directive emphasised the need to ensure adequate availability of human resources, hospital beds, essential medications, medical oxygen, antibiotics, personal protective equipment (PPE), testing kits, and reagents at hospitals. 

Additionally, healthcare facilities must ensure the proper functioning of their oxygen plants and ventilators, and meticulously review infection control protocols to prevent the spread of infections, the Health minister said in its directive.

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The Health Ministry has advised the implementation of the “Operational Guidelines for Revised Surveillance Strategy in the context of COVID-19”. These guidelines, issued earlier this year, establish a framework for integrated surveillance of respiratory pathogens, including influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI).

It also emphasised monitoring ILI-SARI trends, particularly among children and adolescents, by district and state surveillance units of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP). The timely uploading of ILI-SARI data to the IDSP portal, especially from public health institutions, including medical college hospitals, is essential for effective monitoring and outbreak response, it said.

China, still bearing the scars of the COVID-19 pandemic, now confronts a fresh challenge: an enigmatic pneumonia outbreak that is rapidly spreading through its educational institutions. Evoking memories of the harrowing scenes witnessed during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, this new development has overwhelmed hospitals across the country.

Earlier this month, Chinese health officials from the National Health Commission (NHC) convened a press conference to address a recent surge in respiratory illnesses across the country.

China’s health commission has clarified that the outbreak is due to a combination of known pathogens, dispelling concerns about a new virus.

The sudden spike in respiratory illnesses prompted the World Health Organisation (WHO) to request more information from Chinese authorities, following a report from the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases about clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children.