HMPV: Worrying virus explodes in China

A debilitating respiratory virus has been detected in China with pictures of overrun hospitals causing alarm.

Pictures of hospitals being overrun with patients as a respiratory virus wreaks havoc in China has caused alarm in the West.

Images have emerged on social media of patients in masks and parents holding sick children in a worrying reminder of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago.

China is currently experiencing a surge in flu-like human metapneumovirus (HMPV), especially among small children.

However it is unlikely to cause the same havoc as Covid which sparked multiple lockdowns in countries across the globe and left millions dead.

Patients receive infusion therapy at a hospital in Shanghai on December 27 amid a spike in respiratory illnesses. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

HMPV is almost indistinguishable from flu and causes a blocked nose, shivering and tiredness.

It is not considered dangerous unless the patient is under two years old or immunocompromised.

A small number of more vulnerable patients develop serious lung conditions and may be at risk of dying.

However the sheer number of cases in China is cause for concern as hospitals struggle to cope and the US has now reported its own spike in cases.

Dr Sanjaya Senanayake, infectious disease expert associate professor of medicine at The Australian National University, toldDaily Mail it was “vital for China to share its data on this outbreak in a timely manner”, including “data about who is getting infected”.

He added: “Also, we will need genomic data confirming that HMPV is the culprit, and that there aren’t any significant mutations of concern. Such genomic data will also guide vaccine development.”

Reports of hospitals being overrun with patients has brought back bad memories of the Covid pandemic. (Picture: Decoding China)

The US’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said there were 300 confirmed cases of HMPV in the US during the last week of December.

The organisation said it was monitoring the situation in China but said they were “not currently a cause for concern in the US”.

There are currently no fears of a pandemic from HMPV as the virus has been globally present for some years and pandemics are usually caused by novel viruses.

The virus was first identified in the Netherlands in 2001, and spreads through direct contact between people or when someone touches surfaces contaminated with it.

Jacqueline Stephens, an epidemiologist at Flinders University, told the BBC the higher number of cases was likely “the normal seasonal increase seen in winter” of the virus.

Paul Hunter, a medical professor at University of East Anglia, said that almost every child will have at least one HMPV infection by their fifth birthday.

Covid “likely leaked from a lab”

A two-year investigation into the Covid-19 pandemic in the US has concluded that the virus likely leaked from a Chinese laboratory.

A 520-page report from the Republican-controlled House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, which killed 1.1 million Americans, looked at the federal and state-level response, as well as the pandemic’s origins and vaccination efforts.

“This work will help the United States, and the world, predict the next pandemic, prepare for the next pandemic, protect ourselves from the next pandemic, and hopefully prevent the next pandemic,” panel chairman Brad Wenstrup said in a letter to Congress.

“The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted a distrust in leadership. Trust is earned. Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity will regain this trust. A future pandemic requires a whole of America response managed by those without personal benefit or bias. We can always do better, and for the sake of future generations of Americans, we must. It can be done.”

Security personnel outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology where some believe the Covid-19 pandemic started. REUTERS/Thomas Peter/File Photo

US federal agencies, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and scientists across the planet have arrived at different conclusions about the most likely origin of Covid-19, and no consensus has emerged.

Most believe it to have spread from animals in China, but a US intelligence analysis said last year that the virus may have been genetically engineered and escaped from a virology lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where human cases first emerged.

The congressional panel was persuaded by the lab leak theory after meeting 25 times, conducting more than 30 transcribed interviews and reviewing more than one million pages of documents.

The report listed the five “strongest arguments” in favour of the lab leak theory:

1) The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature.

2) Data shows that all Covid-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events.

3) Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research at inadequate biosafety levels.

4) Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with a Covid-like virus in the fall of 2019, months before Covid-19 was discovered at the wet market.

5) By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced.