New virus outbreak in China raises global health concerns

As the world marks five years since the emergence of Covid-19, China is once again at the center of global health attention with an outbreak of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) reported in several regions.

This development comes as many nations are still wrestling with the lasting impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, which claimed at least 7 million lives globally, though WHO estimates suggest the true death toll could be closer to 20 million.

The outbreak has prompted Chinese authorities to implement familiar precautionary measures, including recommendations for face mask usage and frequent hand washing, stirring memories of the early days of Covid-19.

These measures reflect growing concern about the virus's spread, particularly as the world enters 2025 with healthcare systems still recovering from the unprecedented strain of the previous pandemic.

HMPV, while not a novel virus like SARS-CoV-2 was in 2019, is drawing increased attention from global health authorities.

According to China's CDC, HMPV is an RNA virus belonging to the Pneumoviridae family and Metapneumovirus genus. First identified by Dutch researchers in 2001 during studies of children with respiratory infections, the virus has actually been circulating globally for at least six decades as a common respiratory pathogen.

Unlike Covid-19, which emerged as a new threat to human health, HMPV has been a known entity in the medical community for over two decades. The virus primarily spreads through respiratory droplets from coughing and sneezing, with transmission also possible through close contact with infected individuals or contaminated surfaces. 

It has an incubation period of three to five days, and one concerning aspect is that the immune response it triggers is typically too weak to prevent repeated infections.

The virus shows seasonal patterns, with peak activity during winter and spring months. Currently, there is no vaccine available for HMPV, which adds to public health concerns about its potential impact.

The emergence of this HMPV outbreak occurs against the backdrop of a world still recovering from Covid-19's devastating impact. The pandemic hit certain countries particularly hard, with the United States, Brazil, and India recording some of the highest death tolls globally.

The economic and healthcare systems of many nations continue to feel the aftershocks of the pandemic, with some regions still dealing with cases of long COVID and its associated complications.

As we enter 2025, this new outbreak raises significant concerns about global preparedness for managing concurrent respiratory disease outbreaks. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has consistently warned against complacency, with Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasizing that the next pandemic "can come at any moment."

Reports from China have sparked concern on social media, with claims of overcrowded hospitals and the spread of multiple respiratory viruses, including influenza A, HMPV, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, and COVID-19. 

While these reports echo the early days of COVID-19, global health authorities are approaching the situation with measured concern, drawing on lessons learned from the previous pandemic.

The timing of this outbreak is particularly significant as it coincides with ongoing discussions about transparency in global health emergencies. The WHO has urged China to share data to help understand the origins of Covid-19, five years on from the start of the pandemic in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

On December 31, 2019, the WHO’s China office noted a cluster of “pneumonia” cases in a statement from health authorities in Wuhan. More than three weeks later, Chinese authorities locked down the city of 11 million.

Fears of a rapidly spreading virus gripped the nation, but – as authorities would later learn - the coronavirus had already spread far beyond China.

While much of the world has moved on from the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions, many questions remain about the source of a virus that killed at least seven million people, crippled health care systems and upended the global economy. And many experts say China’s opacity has made finding answers to the pandemic’s origins harder.

“We continue to call on China to share data and access so we can understand the origins of Covid-19. This is a moral and scientific imperative,” the WHO said in a statement on Monday.

“Without transparency, sharing, and cooperation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics.”

China’s Foreign Ministry defended the country’s handling of Covid-19 data at a regular news conference Tuesday.

“On the issue of Covid-19 origin tracing, China has always adhered to the spirit of science, openness and transparency, actively supported and participated in global scientific tracing, and resolutely opposed any form of political manipulation,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the ministry.

“China has shared the most data and research results on the issue of Covid-19 origin tracing, and has made the greatest contribution to global tracing research,” Mao added.

How the pandemic started has been a subject of intense scientific scrutiny as well as heated political debates, with opinions divided primarily over whether it originated from a natural animal spillover or a lab leak.

Many scientists believe the virus originated in the wild, before it jumped from infected animals to humans and spread through a wet market in Wuhan, though they haven’t been able to identify the intermediate host.

Suspicions that the coronavirus was leaked from a laboratory near the market, which was first dismissed as a conspiracy theory, have persisted and been endorsed by some researchers.

The search for the origins of the virus has been hugely controversial from the onset and a key source of political tension. The United States and other Western countries have repeatedly accused China of withholding access to original and complete data – which Beijing has vehemently denied.

WHO officials have also criticized China’s tight control of data access, with one official calling its lack of data disclosure “simply inexcusable” in 2023.

Chinese disease control officials responded at the time, saying China had provided the WHO’s expert group with all information it had on the origins of the virus “without withholding any cases, samples, or their testing and analysis results.”

For years, the global health agency has sought access to test results from workers at the market, as well as other raw data that China collected early on in the pandemic.

It was only in 2023, three years after the start of the pandemic, that WHO got access to certain data that Chinese scientists had gathered in early 2020 at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. The raw genetic sequences from the samples had been uploaded to the data-sharing site GISAID. They were soon removed, but quick-thinking researchers had already noticed them and downloaded them for further study.

An analysis of that material, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell in September, showed that coronavirus-susceptible animals and the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 were present at a specific section of the market, although the study did not confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with the virus.

In its statement on Monday, the WHO recounted how on December 31, 2019, its country office in China picked up a statement from the Wuhan municipal health commission’s website on cases of “viral pneumonia” in the city.

“In the weeks, months and years that unfolded after that, Covid-19 came to shape our lives and our world,” it said.

“As we mark this milestone, let’s take a moment to honour the lives changed and lost, recognize those who are suffering from Covid-19 and long Covid, express gratitude to the health workers who sacrificed so much to care for us, and commit to learning from Covid-19 to build a healthier tomorrow.”