Kazakhstan denies reports of "pneumonia deadlier than coronavirus"

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kazakhstan dismissed as incorrect on Friday, July 10 a warning by China’s embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of pneumonia in the central Asian nation that it described as being more lethal than the coronavirus, The Indian Express reports.

In a statement late on Thursday on its official WeChat account, the Chinese embassy flagged a “significant increase” in cases in the Kazakh cities of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent since mid-June.

On Friday, however, Kazakhstan’s healthcare ministry branded Chinese media reports based on the embassy statement as “fake news”.

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 Organisation guidelines.

“The information published by some Chinese media regarding a new kind of pneumonia in Kazakhstan is incorrect,” the ministry said.

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.