China’s Mystery Pneumonia Outbreak: Don’t panic but be careful, says Delhi doctor to Indians

New Delhi: An Indian doctor has a warning for people amid an undetermined pneumonia outbreak in China hitting children hard, with media reports describing overwhelmed children’s hospitals in multiple locations.

Dr Ajay Shukla, Director of Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital has advised people to be careful, follow routine practices of cleanness and if there’s someone who has got this respiratory illness or infection they should try to maintain distance from other people.

“I would just advise people to be careful. Follow routine practices of cleanness and if you feel that there’s someone who’s got this respiratory illness or infection, since a lot of these cases are viral and they can be transmitted, try to maintain distance from other people,” Dr Shukla told media on Friday.

According to him, it is a double whammy for us since we are also dealing with pollution when going out. He advised the use of a mask, preferably an N95 and N99, to wash hands and maintain safe, healthy practices.

On school children, he said special care should be taken that they do not have cough, cold, fever or any other symptoms. They should not be sent to school if they exhibit any of these symptoms. Dr Shukla said that the increase in the number of small children going to hospitals with respiratory illnesses has disrupted the situation in China.

“According to another expert, it’s most probably just a bacterial infection or a viral infection. Some organism by the name of MIKO plasma pneumoniae, which is common and not a dangerous bacterial infection is probably at the root of this illness. This has led to an increase in cases and it’s basically because of the low immunity as a result of the severe lockdown,” he told NDTV, adding that experts have also said that there is no need to worry about the disease in India as its symptoms have not been seen in the country yet.

“Not a single patient infected with this disease has been found in India yet. There is no increase in cases in any part of India so far, or any part of the world apart from China. So all the cases that we’re hearing are from China,” the doctor said.

He asked people not to panic and that a pandemic-like situation will not happen going by the limited information that exists about this new influenza.

“According to the very few details that are available, people are saying there’s nothing to panic about, there’s nothing to suggest it is something that will take the shape of a pandemic, like with COVID. So, we should not start comparing it with that. I would suggest that we need to monitor the situation very closely and wait for additional information before we reach any conclusion,” he said.

The RML Hospital Director said that there is normally an increasing number of influenza cases before the winter every year and this does not suggest an abnormal increase in cases.

“You see every winter because of the cold and because of the pollution, there’s always an increasing number of cases, especially respiratory illnesses, we see an increase so I mean, that increase is bound to happen because we’ve not really felt the winter so far. So those cases are going to increase. I don’t think there’s any reason why we should feel that we will have an increase beyond that increase which is seen every year,” Dr Shukla said.