Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 02:39 pm
The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan has warned of a deadly “unknown pneumonia” after the former Soviet republic reported a spike in pneumonia cases since June.
“The death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus. The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus,” the embassy said in a warning to Chinese citizens in the country.
While the Chinese embassy described the illness as an “unknown pneumonia”, Kazakhstani officials and media have only said it is pneumonia.
It was not clear why the Chinese embassy had described the illness as “unknown” or what information it had about the pneumonia.
The embassy’s website, citing local media reports, said the provinces of Atyrau and Aktobe and the city of Shymkent have reported significant spikes in pneumonia cases since the middle of June.
Shymkent and the capital city of Atyrau are 1500km apart, while the distance between the capital cities of Atyrau and Aktobe is 330km.
The Chinese embassy said that so far there have been nearly 500 pneumonia cases in the three places, with more than 30 people in a critical condition.
Saule Kisikova, the healthcare department chief in the capital Nur-Sultan, told the news agency Kazinform: “Some 300 people diagnosed with pneumonia are being hospitalised every day.”
(Nzherald)
