Now Shenzhen | August 21, 2023
DESPITE the rising trend of variant EG.5 cases, China’s overall COVID-19 prevalence remains at a low level, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Saturday.
The proportion of EG.5-related cases in all COVID infections has risen from 0.6% in April to 71.6% at present, and it is the predominant variant in the vast majority of provinces in China. There is a high possibility that the trend will continue over a period of time, the center said.
The pressure that current cases are putting on local healthcare systems is relatively low, and it is unlikely that large-scale transmission will take place in the short term, according to the center.
Meanwhile, Foshan CDC said that infections caused by the new strain EG.5 are within a controllable range in Foshan, Guangdong Province, although it has gradually become a dominant strain in the city.
The EG.5 variant does not exhibit enhanced virulence in humans, but its transmissibility is stronger, resulting in greater case numbers, according to the center.
The World Health Organization said in early August that the EG.5 coronavirus strain is a “variant of interest,” but said it did not pose more of a threat than other variants. The EG.5 strain has been detected in 51 countries, according to the WHO.
The Foshan CDC has carried out a project to monitor a variety of COVID-19 mutations, including monitoring case samples collected by local hospitals, imported samples from abroad and samples derived from public gathering places, with a major focus on samples related to severe cases and deaths caused by the contagion.
Third-time infections have also been reported in other cities across Guangdong, though the number of these is very limited.
Lu Hongzhou, director of the National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases and president of the Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen, said that, among the fever patients in the hospital’s outpatient department, the number of new daily COVID-19 infections this month was about five every day since August.
ARTICLE FROM: Shenzhen Daily