New Delhi: Even before the world comes to terms with deadly Coronavirus pandemic, China has issued warning about a new disease, more fatal than Covid-19. The warning has sent alarm bells ringing for authorities across the world.
However, the disease is said to be centred in Kazakhstan. Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan warned of an unknown pneumonia sweeping through the central Asian country, after more than 600 people died of pneumonia in June.
In an advisory, it alerted its citizens living in former Soviet Bloc country to stay careful as this disease has ‘more fatality’ than Coronavirus.
The “unknown pneumonia in Kazakhstan caused 1,772 deaths in the first six months of the year, including 628 people in June alone”, the Chinese embassy said in a statement on its WeChat platform on Thursday, adding that the fatalities also included Chinese citizens.
More lethal, more fatal than Covid-19, says Chinese media
The fatality rate of the disease is much higher than COVID-19,” state-run Global Times quoted the embassy’s statement on Friday.
Many organisations including Kazakhstan’s health department are studying the “virus of this pneumonia”, the embassy said. There has not been any indication whether this disease is related to the COVID-19.
Some Chinese experts said that measures should be taken to prevent the pneumonia from spreading into China. Kazakhstan borders China’s northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The embassy is reminding the Chinese citizens in Kazakhstan to raise their awareness of measures to prevent the spread of the virus. It quoted local media as saying that since mid-June, almost 500 people have been infected with the pneumonia in three regions of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan calls it fake news
Kazakhstan dismissed as incorrect on Friday a warning by China’s embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of pneumonia in the central Asian nation that it described as being more lethal than the coronavirus. Kazakhstan’s healthcare ministry branded Chinese media reports based on the embassy statement as “fake news”.
Kazakhstan, which imposed a second lockdown this week to rein in the pandemic, has a tally of almost 55,000 COVID-19 infections, including 264 deaths. The number of new cases rose on Thursday to a daily record of 1,962.
