KOLKATA: On Thursday, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare dismissed claims of pneumonia cases being reported at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, stating that there have been no instances of the disease at the hospital.
The Ministry said, “Media reports claiming detection of bacterial cases in AIIMS Delhi linked to the recent surge in Pneumonia cases in China are misleading and inaccurate. Pneumonia cases in AIIMS Delhi have no link to the recent surge in respiratory infections in children in China,” he said.
Since January till date no case of “Mycoplasma pneumonia” has been detected in the 611 samples tested at the Department of Microbiology.
The samples were tested as part of the Indian Council of Medical Research’s multiple respiratory pathogen surveillance, which also includes severe acute respiratory illnesses (SARI) which comprises nearly 95 per cent of the cases denoted by real-time PCR.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is the commonest bacterial cause of community-acquired pneumonia, accounting for nearly 15 to 30 per cent of the infections.
However, till now, no surge has been reported from any part of India. “The Union Health Ministry is in touch with state health authorities and is keeping a close watch on the situation on an everyday basis,” an official stated. Presently, the AIIMS facility is looking into seven admitted cases as part of a six-month-long study that began in April and ended in September.
Recently, China reported a sudden rise in respiratory ailments, especially among children, with many doctors diagnosing them for pneumonia.
According to Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention data, more than 3,500 cases of respiratory infection among the patients at the Children’s Hospital.