The Chinese authorities are hiding the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, Chinese doctors are again being forced to remain silent, Foreign Policy journalists claim.
In Beijing and other major Chinese cities, hospitals are overcrowded with children suffering from pneumonia and similar serious illnesses. The Chinese government denies the existence of a new pathogen, attributing the surge in infections to common winter coughs and colds that worsened after COVID-19 restrictions were eased in December 2022.
An authoritative American publication writes about this Foreign Policy.
Moreover, the Chinese authorities are hiding the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, journalists say.
However, the Chinese government maintains that no new pathogen has been discovered and that the surge in respiratory infections is simply caused by common winter coughs and colds, exacerbated by the lifting of strict COVID-19 restrictions in December 2022.
There is some truth to Beijing’s assertion, but it is only part of the story. In fact, China may harbor an even greater threat: the cultivation of antibiotic-resistant strains of common and potentially deadly bacteria.
Concerns about another new respiratory pathogen emerging from China are understandable in the wake of the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics that Beijing covered up. Adding to the concern, Beijing continues to obstruct any independent investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, whether it was accidentally leaked from a Wuhan laboratory conducting dangerous gain-of-function research or obtained through illegal activities. .
Four years ago, in the early weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, Beijing failed to report the new virus and then denied its airborne spread. In an effort to maintain their lies, Chinese authorities punished doctors who raised concerns and prohibited doctors from speaking even with Chinese colleagues, let alone international ones.
Chinese medical statistics remain extremely unreliable. The country still claims total deaths from COVID-19 at just over 120,000, while independent estimates suggest the number may have been over 2 million during the initial outbreak alone. Now Chinese doctors are once again being silenced and not communicating with their colleagues abroad. This suggests that another potentially dangerous cover-up may be taking place.
China’s silence is not surprising. The country’s per capita antibiotic consumption is ten times that of the United States, and AMR management policies are largely cosmetic, although surveillance is China’s strength, reporting is not.
Recall that children’s hospitals in many cities, including Beijing, are overcrowded: on average, about 1,200 new patients are admitted to the emergency department every day.
Author: Mark Voroshilov
2023-11-29 14:52:34
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