HMPV latest news: US monitoring China cases as Bali steps up checks on flights from the country

China’s National Disease Control and Prevention Administration recently acknowledged an increase in respiratory infections, including HMPV.

In response, it has launched a pilot programme to track pneumonia of unknown origin, aiming to improve the identification and management of such cases.

This involves closer coordination between laboratories and health agencies and ensuring timely reporting of new cases.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Friday the disease was spreading at “a smaller scale compared to the previous year”.

This mirrors seasonal trends seen in other countries, including the UK, which is experiencing similar spikes in respiratory illnesses this winter.

China’s state-run newspaper The Global Times has accused Western media of “exaggerating” reports of a surge in HMPV infections in China.

The outlet said that foreign media claimed that HMPV infections have overwhelmed hospitals in China and drew comparisons to Covid-19.

In response, Chinese authorities have said that they remain transparent in reporting infectious diseases. The World Health Organisation has said that it is in contact with Chinese health officials and has received no reports of unusual HMPV outbreak patterns.

“Over the past two years, awareness of HMPV infections in China has grown despite the virus being first identified more than 20 years ago, and has been circulating among people for as long as 60 years. The increase of awareness is primarily due to the improvement in our country’s respiratory pathogen detection capabilities and the increased public attention toward respiratory infectious diseases,” Li Tongzeng, the chief physician of the infection department at Beijing You’an Hospital, told The Global Times.

Dr Andrew Catchpole, chief scientific officer at London-based research organisation hVIVO, said “more information on the specific strain” of the virus was needed, but that experts did not consider it to have pandemic potential.

“HMPV is usually detected in the winter periods but it does seem that the rates of serious infection may be higher in China than what we would expect in a normal year,” he told the Evening Standard.

“We need more information on the specific strain that is circulating to start to understand if this is the usual circulating strains or if the virus causing high infection rates in China has some differences.”

The World Health Organisation has said that it is in contact with Chinese health officials and has received no reports of unusual HMPV outbreak patterns.

“WHO continues to monitor respiratory illnesses at global, regional and country levels through collaborative surveillance systems, and provides updates as needed,’‘ it said.

Chinese authorities have reported that the healthcare system is functioning normally, with no emergency declarations or responses initiated.

India, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan reported cases of HMPV in late December and Bali started monitoring flights from China and Malaysia in the wake of the rise in HMPV infections. However, authorities maintain that the virus has been around for decades and that there is nothing unusual about the infections.

Experts advise practising good sneezing and coughing etiquette, and hand washing to mitigate transmission.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are currently “monitoring” reports of increasing cases of human metapneumovirus in China’s northern provinces, according to reports.

“CDC is aware of reported increases of HMPV in China and is in regular contact with international partners and monitoring reports of increased disease,” a spokesperson for the CDC said.

“These reports are not currently a cause for concern in the U.S.,” the spokesperson added.

Amesh Adalja, an infectious-diseases physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told the Washington Post that Covid-19 distorted our perceptions of infectious-disease threats, especially when images of sick people emerge from China.

“There’s just this tendency post-Covid to treat every infectious-disease anything as an emergency when it’s not. You wouldn’t probably be calling me in 2018 about this.”

Experts say that human metapneumovirus (HMPV) behaves like RSV, with varying severity year to year, and there is nothing particularly worrying about HMPV.