Current Respiratory Virus In China Not A Repeat Of Covid-19

Epidemiologist Tulio de Oliveira says an outbreak of the recent respiratory virus currently experienced in China and India is not a repeat of COVID-19.

The virus, identified as human metapneumovirus HMPV, has seen cases surging across Chinese provinces this winter, particularly among children.

The outbreak comes five years after the world was first alerted to the emergence of the coronavirus in Wuhan China, which later turned into a global pandemic with seven million deaths reported worldwide.

Professor de Oliveira says this current outbreak is the result of winter in the northern hemisphere.

What we are seeing is infection happening by multiple viruses but all of them are known, especially the one that has just hit the news in the last few days. We call it the human metapneumovirus HMPV which is just a virus that normally causes a cold. But together with influenza and COVID and another virus called the Respiratory Syncytial Virus, it is causing a large wave of respiratory infections.