India closely monitoring respiratory illness in children amid scare from China

The Indian government has asked all the states and union territories to closely monitor the respiratory illness cases among children and adolescents in order to analyse its seriousness. In the aftermath of an alarming situation in China where a sudden surge of respiratory illnesses among children has been reported, India has asked the authorities to report all cases of serious respiratory illnesses — Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Illness (SARI), the Hindustan Times reported citing people familiar with the matter.

As quoted, a senior central government official said on condition of anonymity that "this is being done purely as a precautionary measure; so far no red flags have been seen but it is important to step up the vigil".

"There is already a surveillance system in place for tracking respiratory illnesses owing to COVID-19, which will be made use of for further surveillance. As has been said before, the risk for India continues to remain low," he said as quoted.

Dr Neeraj Kumar Gupta, Pulmonary Department Head at Safadarjung Hospital, told ANI recently that the latest respiratory illness outbreak in China is no threat to India and mentioned that "we are well prepared".

"I don't personally see any threat to India because we are well prepared. Even if it is a novel virus, we are well prepared because we have our past experience with us. Even the health ministry has issued guidelines so remain vigilant on this," Dr Gupta told the news agency.

Covid-like scare again?

As per recent reports, China is reporting a large number of respiratory infections, particularly among children, and hospital wards are reportedly running full. So far, there's no confirmation of deaths, but the trends have triggered a scare similar to the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, which killed millions and left a million others with symptoms of long Covid.

On November 25, Dr Sushila Kataria, who is the Senior Director of Internal Medicine at Medanta in Gurugram, told WION that the recent cases in China prompted concerns "reminiscent of the events in November and December 2019".

She said that the Chinese government has clarified that these cases are attributed to known pathogens such as bacteria and viruses, including the influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, some Covid cases, and some mycoplasma cases.

"Given that the incidence of pneumonia typically increases during winter, it is hoped that this surge is seasonal," Dr Kataria said.

Watch:Pneumonia worry in the Netherlands

Similar cases in Europe

A report in The Messenger published on November 28 stated that the Netherlands is experiencing a rise in pneumonia cases among children as it becomes the second nation besides China to report an outbreak of such cases.

The Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NIVEL), a research institute in Utrecht, reported that 80 of every 100,000 children between ages five and 14 came down with pneumonia last week.

(With inputs from agencies)