CHINESE EMBASSY RAISES ALARM AGAINST NEW DISEASE, KAZAKHSTAN TRASHES IT
‘UNKNOWN PNEUMONIA’ Chinese embassy in the central Asian nation says mystery outbreak has claimed 628 lives in June; Kazakh govt calls it ‘incorrect’
BEIJING:Kazakhstan on Friday dismissed as incorrect a warning issued by the Chinese embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of an “unknown pneumonia” in the central Asian nation, describing it as being more lethal than the coronavirus.
The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan, located in the city of Nur Sultan, issued a statement late on Thursday on its official account on the app WeChat, flagging a “significant increase” in cases in the Kazakh cities of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent since mid-June.
The Chinese embassy statement said pneumonia in Kazakhstan killed 1,772 people in the year’s first half, with 628 deaths in June, including Chinese citizens. “The mortality rate of the disease is much higher than that of pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus,” it said.
On Friday, however, Kazakhstan’s health care ministry said the news was incorrect.
According to agency reports, the ministry said its tallies of bacterial, fungal and viral pneumonia infections, which also included cases of unclear causes, were in line with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. “The information published by some Chinese media regarding a new kind of pneumonia in Kazakhstan is incorrect,” the ministry said.
The Kazakhstan health ministry acknowledged the presence of “viral pneumonias of unspecified aetiology”, but denied that the outbreak was new or unknown.
“In response to these reports, the ministry of health of the
Republic of Kazakhstan officially declares that this information does not correspond to reality,” the statement said.
Kazakhstan implemented a lockdown on March 16 to contain the spread of Covid-19. Curbs were lifted in May but reimposed following an increase in cases.
President Kassim-Jomart Tokayev has said the country could be facing a second wave of coronavirus infections.
Kazakhstan, which imposed a second lockdown this week to rein in the pandemic, has a tally of almost 55,000 Covid-19 infections, including 264 deaths. The number of new cases rose on Thursday to a daily record of 1,962.
China, according to a Reuters report, is a major investor in oiland metals-rich Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry had summoned the Chinese ambassador in April to protest over an article on a Chinese website saying the country was keen to become part of China. It was a rare move as the two countries avoid criticising each other.