GENEVA - China may be struggling to keep a tally of Covid-19 infections as the country experiences a big spike in cases, a senior World Health Organisation official said on Wednesday, amid concerns about a lack of data from the country.
Official figures from China have become an unreliable guide as less testing is being done across the country following the recent easing of the strict “zero-Covid” policy.
“In China, what’s been reported is relatively low numbers of cases in ICUs, but anecdotally ICUs are filling up,” WHO’s emergencies director Mike Ryan said.
“I wouldn’t like to say that China is actively not telling us what’s going on. I think they’re behind the curve.”
Chinese authorities said on Tuesday that only those who had directly died of respiratory failure caused by the virus would now be counted under Covid-19 death statistics.
The change in the criteria for recording virus deaths means most are no longer counted.
Dozens of hearses queued outside a Beijing crematorium on Wednesday, even as China reported no new Covid-19 deaths in its growing outbreak, sparking criticism of its virus accounting as the capital braces for a surge in cases.
The WHO said it was ready to work with China to improve the way the country collects data around critical factors such as hospitalisation and death.
Dr Ryan noted that there had been a surge in vaccination rates in the country over the last weeks, adding that it remains to be seen whether enough vaccination can be done in the coming weeks to stave off the impact of an Omicron wave.
The WHO would encourage work to import vaccines, but also to find arrangements where vaccines can be produced in as many places as possible, Dr Ryan said.
China has nine domestically developed Covid-19 vaccines approved for use, more than any other country, but they have not been updated to target the highly infectious Omicron variant.
Berlin sent its first batch of BioNTech Covid-19 vaccines to China to be administered initially to German expatriates, a German government spokesman said on Wednesday, the first foreign coronavirus vaccine to be delivered to the country.
WHO’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said he was very concerned about the unprecedented wave of Covid-19 cases in China, as the health body urged Beijing to accelerate vaccination of the most vulnerable.
“WHO is very concerned over the evolving situation in China, with increasing reports of severe disease” Dr Tedros said, appealing for detailed information on disease severity, hospital admissions and intensive care requirements.
“WHO is supporting China to focus its efforts on vaccinating people at the highest risk across the country, and we continue to offer our support for clinical care and protecting its health system”, he added.
China ended most of its zero-Covid measures without notice in early December amid growing public exasperation and a significant impact on the economy.
The number of cases has since soared, raising fears of a high mortality rate among the elderly, who are particularly vulnerable.
Said Dr Ryan: “We’ve been saying this for weeks that this highly infectious virus was always going to be very hard to stop completely, with just public health and social measures. And most countries have really transitioned to a mixed strategy.
“Vaccination is the exit strategy in that sense from the impact of a wave of Omicron.” REUTERS, AFP
