Month: November 2023

Nov 29

Blood drives at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hamilton Community Center next week

The American Red Cross urges donors to give thanks and give back by making a plan to give blood or platelets next week at two blood drives in Hancock County. Basco Immanuel Lutheran Church, 921 N. Co. Rd. 1900, Carthage, will be hosting a blood drive from 12-5 p.m. Monday, Dec. 4, and Hamilton Community Center, 1680 Keokuk St., Hamilton, will host another Tuesday, Dec. 5, from 11:30 a.m. — 5 p.m. This time of year is traditionally hard on the nation’s blood supply. Seasonal illness, winter weather and holiday celebrations often lead to lower appointment numbers and decreased donor turnout, making it hard to keep up with the demand for blood products. When they give now, donors can ensure patients have access to lifesaving blood and platelets through the end of the year. The public can schedule an appointment now by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767).

Nov 29

Why the world is worried about a new pandemic in China

As a result of the global Covid trauma, when lots of people in China sneeze, the world shudders. So, news that China is experiencing a surge in respiratory child illnesses, including pneumonia, has understandably given the world the jitters. Reports from local media and the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases — a publicly available system run by the International Society for Infectious Diseases — have mentioned clusters of “undiagnosed pneumonia” in children’s hospitals in Beijing, Liaoning and other places in China. The World Health Organisation promptly asked Chinese authorities for lab test results and data on recent trends in the spread of respiratory illnesses. WHO officials conclude that common winter infections — rather than any new pathogens — are behind the spike in hospitalisations. And most experts are not unduly concerned about this rise in child illness, blaming it on greater susceptibility to familiar pathogens after several winter lockdowns. But there are wider fears over how China may respond to another rapidly spreading virus. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at University of East Anglia who specialises in investigating the causes of outbreaks of infectious diseases, told i he thinks the current surge in illness is unlikely to be due to a novel virus. “Early reports of “pulmonary nodules” on chest X-rays of young patients in China are “consistent with bacterial pneumonias that tend to follow flu infections,” he says. “As this is the first full winter that China has not had Covid restrictions in place, we are probably seeing high numbers of such infections as we did last winter… some sources are suggesting that current cases are not as high as some years pre-Covid.” Another researcher, Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong, has a similar take. He told Nature magazine: “This is a typical ‘winter surge’ in acute respiratory infections. It is happening slightly earlier this year, perhaps because of increased population susceptibility to respiratory infections resulting from three years of Covid measures.” The question remains, however, would China react with any greater alacrity and transparency than it did in January 2020, when Covid began spreading through the population of Wuhan? And it’s a question with real urgency, given the prospect that another pandemic could occur at any time from any one of hundreds of wet markets, which appear as busy and popular as ever. Most China watchers doubt it. “The problem is, that Xi Jinping does not accept that China’s action or non-action was responsible for the Covid pandemic, so it’s hard to learn lessons when China could not have made any mistake,” says Professor Steve Tsang, the director of the Soas Chinese Institute in London. Many professionals in China, of course, want to perform their duties – just as the whistle-blowing medic Li Wenliang did at the start of the pandemic. He sounded the alarm about the emergence of deadly Sars-like illness in Wuhan, at the start of 2020. He died of Covid on 7 February after being told by officials to “stop making false comments” and was investigated for “spreading rumours”. The trouble is, says Professor Tsang, most medics and scientists feel obliged to follow the orders of the Chinese Communist Party, and “since China is under the rule of a strongman, it is about how one man, Xi Jinping, decides how things are to be done… No one dares to do anything that can be seen as suggesting China had done something wrong in the start of the Covid pandemic. “We better keep our fingers crossed that nothing like Covid emerges from China again any time soon.” Neither are scientists very optimistic that China has learnt its lesson. “Communication is key and, given the Covid experience, I would have hoped to see a more proactive, transparent and engaged response from China to new disease clusters, but that is unfortunately not what we’ve seen so far,” says Dr Fillipa Lentzos, a biothreats expert and a reader in science and international security at King’s College London. She was one of the two dozen scientists from the US, UK, France and Australia who called in an open letter in March 2021 for a fresh international inquiry into the origins of Covid pandemic. The open letter came after a team of WHO investigators announced it would scrap an interim report on the origins of the virus after its fact-seeking mission in Wuhan was consistently impeded by Chinese officials. Dr Lentzos and her co-authors said the WHO investigators had so little access to the resources they needed that it was “all but impossible” to confidently conclude that the virus did not escape from a Chinese laboratory. Most scientists working in the field believe Covid did occur naturally, as an animal virus crossing over to humans. But given the clinical importance of understanding how the viral infection arose in human populations, it was incumbent on Chinese authorities to be as open as possible. If another novel and deadly virus does arise in China, would the authorities alert the world more quickly than it did last time? Depressingly, the answer is: probably not.

Nov 29

Identification of immune-related genes as uremia biomarkers

Introduction Uremia is a symptom of the final stage of chronic renal failure, which is clinically characterized by aberrant water, electrolyte, acid, and base balance and increased blood levels of metabolites, such as creatinine and urea.1 The uremia stage is often associated with a number of secondary conditions and comorbidities of chronic kidney disease (CKD), including, but not limited to: decreased renal function and accumulation of metabolites; pathological changes in the circulatory system, including anemia, platelet dysfunction, and bleeding; neuromuscular dysfunction and cognitive impairment; vascular endothelial dysfunction and vascular disease progression; endocrine and metabolic disorders, such as insulin resistance, gonadal dysfunction, hyperparathyroidism, and CKD-mineral and bone metabolism disorder; congenital and adaptive immunological diseases characterized by inflammation and immune deficiency.1–3 Patients in uremia stage are associated with poor prognosis of High morbidity, high prevalence of cardiovascular disease, high mortality rates. The main therapeutic strategies for uremia are kidney transplantation or dialysis (including hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis). However, the expensive treatment is a major economic burden for society and individuals. Thus, uremia is a major challenge to global health. Recently, the number of studies on uremia has markedly increased. However, the pathological mechanisms of uremia have not been elucidated. The elucidation of the molecular mechanism and the identification of targets for early intervention, which are common concerns of interdisciplinary research and challenging limitations, are the major focus of renal disease research.1–3 The dynamic regulatory effects of the uremic environment on the immune system are known as uremic inflammation and include immune activation and immunosuppression.4 The aberrant activation of the innate immune system, especially monocytes, is one of the features of uremic inflammation.5,6 Patients with end-stage renal disease treated with renal replacement therapy exhibit premature immunological aging of T cells, which may be the cause of uremia-related immune dysfunction.7 This study used bioinformatics methods to examine the correlation between immune-related genes (IRGs) and uremia and screen molecular markers that can aid in the diagnosis, elucidation of pathogenesis, and treatment of uremia. Materials and Methods Data Source The data of an independent uremia cohort (GSE37171) were obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/). The GSE37171 dataset comprised data of blood samples from 75 patients with uremia and 40 healthy subjects. The dataset was divided into training (20 healthy and 63 uremic samples) and validation (20 healthy and 12 uremic samples) sets.3 Additionally, the data of 1793 IRGs were retrieved from the ImmPort database (https://immport.niaid.nih.gov) (Supplementary File 1). Screening of Differentially Expressed Genes (DEGs) The DEGs between the uremia and control groups in the training set were screened using the limma package (|log fold-change| > 0.5; adj. p < 0.05).8 The screening results were visualized using the volcano plot and heatmap, which were plotted using the R language ggplot2 (version 3.3.6) package and pheatmap package (version 1.0.12), respectively.9 Identification of Differentially Expressed IRGs (DEIRGs) The clinical traits of the uremia and control groups in the training set were used to perform weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) using the R package WGCNA to obtain key modules and key module genes.10 The outlier samples in the training set were filtered out using the Hclust function. Next, the soft threshold of data was determined and the adjacency was calculated. Gene modules were obtained using dynamic tree cutting with a minimum of 30 genes in each gene module, and similar modules were merged. The modules related to uremia were selected as key modules and key module genes for subsequent analysis. DEIRGs were obtained by intersecting the DEGs, key module genes, and 1793 IRGs using the VennDiagram package.11 Functional enrichment analysis of DEIRGs was performed using the R language clusterProfiler (p < 0.05).12 Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) Network Protein interactions between DEIRGs associated with uremia were characterized using the STRING database (http://string-db.org) (score > 0.4). The topological properties of the PPI networks were analyzed using cytoHubba in the Cytoscape plugin.13 The maximal clique centrality (MCC), degree, and stress algorithms were applied to evaluate and select candidate genes. Identification and Validation of Biomarkers In the training set, three machine learning models (generalized linear model (GLM), support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE), and random forest (RF)) were executed using the R package “DALEX” to plot the residual distribution and obtain the best model. The biomarkers were obtained from the best model. The receiving operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the biomarkers were generated using the survROC R package to evaluate the diagnostic value of the biomarkers.14 Next, the validation set was used to further assess the diagnostic power of the biomarkers. The expression of biomarkers in the training set and validation set was displayed. Construction and Verification of a Nomogram The nomogram of biomarkers in the training set was constructed using the R language rms package. The predictive power of the nomogram model was evaluated using clinical impact curves (CICs) and decision curve analysis (DCA).15 Evaluation of Infiltrating Immune Cell Landscape The distribution of immune cells in the training set was examined using the CIBERSORT algorithm.16 The differential distribution of immune cells in the uremia and control samples was compared using the Wilcox test.16 Next, Spearman correlation analysis was performed to explore the correlation between biomarkers and differentially abundant immune cells.17,18 Gene Set Enrichment Analyses (GSEA) and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) Functional enrichment analysis of biomarkers in the training set was performed using the GSEA function of the R package clusterProfiler (p 1).19 The gene identifiers and corresponding expression values of the DEGs in the training set were uploaded to the IPA software, which was used to analyze the unique pathways of the biomarkers.20 Validation of Expression of Biomarkers The expression of biomarkers was verified using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). We collected blood samples from 5 uremic patients and 5 healthy subjects for validation at the Guangxi International Zhuang Medical Hospital in February 2023. The 5 uremic patients met the following four conditions: (1) Age 18–90 years old, male or female; (2) Meet the diagnostic criteria for chronic kidney disease, with creatinine clearance <10mL/min; (3) Have been on

Nov 29

Sir Elton John to address MPs after HIV testing trials success

By Jack Fenwick & Adam SmithBBC Politics PA Media Sir Elton John has campaigned on tackling HIV Opt-out blood tests for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C will be rolled out to a further 46 hospitals across England, the government has announced. Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the new £20m programme would lead to earlier diagnoses and treatment. It comes ahead of a speech by Sir Elton John at an event in Parliament. The rock legend will urge ministers to do more to hit the target of eliminating new HIV cases in England by 2030. Ms Atkins and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer are also expected to speak at the event. Under the scheme, anyone having a blood test in selected hospital A&E units has also been tested for HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, unless they opted out. The trials have been taking place for the last 18 months in 33 hospitals in London, Greater Manchester, Sussex and Blackpool, where prevalence is classed by the NHS as “very high”. Figures released by the NHS earlier show those pilots have identified more than 3,500 cases of the three bloodborne infections since April 2022, including more than 580 HIV cases. Following the government’s announcement, opt-out testing will now be available in areas such as the West Midlands, Liverpool and Leicester, where HIV prevalence is classed as high. Ms Atkins said: “The more people we can diagnose, the more chance we have of ending new transmissions of the virus and the stigma wrongly attached to it.” She added that rolling out the tests to more hospitals would help ensure early diagnoses so people “can be given the support and the medical treatment they need to live not just longer lives but also higher quality lives”. Sam, whose real name is not being used, lives in Greater Manchester and is in his 40s. Last year, he had a blood test after going to A&E following an accident. “I got a phone call two days after being in A&E,” he says, “just saying to me we’ve got some concerns about a blood test that was done at the time. They asked me to come in and do some further tests. “I hadn’t realised about the opt-out testing at the time, so I wasn’t expecting a phone call from a health clinic. I thought it was about a survey or something about my experience in A&E.” After a two-week wait, Sam was diagnosed with HIV. “Had that test not happened, I may not be here today” “It felt like this was happening to somebody else. I wasn’t expecting it. My family don’t know, and I don’t want to cause them any distress. “And I feel maybe their lack of knowledge about the HIV virus and the 80s and how things were then, it makes me a lot more reluctant to tell them.” The opt-out trials were designed to identify cases in people unlikely to get tested at a sexual health clinic and are based on similar bloodborne infection testing programmes already in place for pregnant women. The NHS says 42% of HIV diagnoses in the UK are made late, when the immune system has already been significantly damaged. Sam now takes one tablet a day and goes for a check-up every six months. “The rest of my life is completely as it was before,” he says. But that’s not the case for everyone. Jackie, who lives in the West Midlands where HIV prevalence is high but opt-out testing is not available, was given a late diagnosis. “Nobody had got a clue what was wrong with me,” she says. “Losing my hair, losing weight, thrush in my mouth and I kept going back to the GP. And it wasn’t until my breathing got so bad, which was a few years down the line, they put me in hospital.” Doctors still could not figure out what was making Jackie so ill. Then eventually, they decided to carry out an HIV test. She believes there were opportunities much earlier on when she could have been given a test. What is HIV? HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus – which weakens the immune system More than 94,000 people are living with HIV and accessing care in England Very successful treatment means most people affected can live long, healthy lives HIV medication reduces virus levels so much that passing on the virus to sexual partners is now only a tiny risk HIV diagnoses went up from 3,118 in 2021 to 3,805 in 2022 Most of that rise is down to people previously diagnosed abroad being given a diagnosis and care on arrival in England. Those diagnosed late tend to be women, who are less likely to take an HIV test Overall, more and more people are accessing tests as well as pills to reduce chances of getting HIV through sex Sir Elton, whose Aids Foundation played a key role in pioneering opt-out testing, will be speaking at an event in Parliament later hosted by the all-party parliamentary group for HIV and Aids. The event has been organised to mark World Aids Day and the end of Sir Elton’s touring career, and he is expected to specifically mention opt-out testing. Getty Images Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish at a fundraising event for Aids Foundation with singer Rina Sawayama Sam is supportive of further opt-out testing, but believes more could be done to make clear that people are being tested in the first place. “I’m very happy that I went through it now,” he says. “At the time, I did feel a little bit ambushed. I felt that maybe some of my rights had been taken away from me. I thought that was my choice to make. “However, it’s obviously worked in my favour because I don’t know for a fact I would have said yes or no to that test.” Sign up for our morning newsletter and get BBC News in your inbox. BBC in other languages

Nov 29

Curbing Underage Prostitution

Needless to say, the reality of child abuse and prostitution is an apodictic phenomenon in Nigeria, as in many developing and developed countries. This development has become an agonising threat, with multiple correlated implications, in addition to denying the fundamental rights and dignity of children as acknowledged in the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.The attention this incident draws is based on the awareness of the prominence of children in families and societies as future generations and leaders of tomorrow. And as potential standard-bearers of any nation, they need to be properly cared for and nurtured, thereby providing an enabling environment for them to develop their potential to take on such great responsibilities.Child prostitution has devastating consequences for children individually and society as a whole. Undermining these consequences can lead to serious and far-reaching problems, not only for individuals but for society as well. To address the threat, law enforcement agents have been conducting raids on brothels and residences across the country to apprehend those involved in the dastardly act.For example, the police in Lagos State emancipated 24 ladies including a 13-year-old who were trafficked from Akwa Ibom State for prostitution. Four members of the syndicate that brought the girls, most of them from Oron in Akwa Ibom, were also arrested. The trafficked girls were rescued in shanties used as hotels around an abattoir area at Agege. Preliminary investigations revealed that the traffickers charged men N2,000 to sleep with the girls who were then given N5,000 at the end of the month.Furthermore, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) arrested eight underaged girls in Benin, the Edo State capital, for allegedly contravening section 17 of the Agency’s Act. The arrest was made by the Benin Zonal Command of the agency, comprising Edo and Delta States. The arrest of the underaged girls followed a raid on two brothels in the Aduwawa axis of the state.Similarly, the Rivers State Police Command recently said its operatives rescued three underaged girls and arrested three male suspects during a raid on a brothel at Azikiwe Street, Mile Two, Diobu, Port Harcourt, the state capital. Policemen from Rumuolumeni alerted the Azikiwe Police Division following a complaint from a relative of one of the underaged girls, who was compelled into prostitution. The list is endless.Nigeria has numerous underaged girls living and making a living in the streets. This has been attributed to economic factors and exposure to all forms of risks. The result is the proliferation of prostitution among young people, with its attendant problems. The causes of child prostitution in the country are largely economic, sociological, and socioeconomic factors. The effects of prostitution are psychological reactions, psychosocial damage, and political implications, which dent the nation’s image.NAPTIP recently lamented that about 60 per cent of the female sex hawkers in Italy were Nigerians. It described the situation as not only pathetic but “highly unacceptable.” In other words, there is no question about whether the population of Nigerian girls who are engaged in sex hawking in the European country is sizeable because it is indeed significantly so. This is awful and constitutes a monumental national embarrassment.By the agency’s disclosure, it is evident that many of the federal and state governments’ intervention schemes to curb underage prostitution have been largely ineffective and inadequate. Many wives of the heads of subnational governments are also known to have pet projects whose objectives are partly woven around the curtailment of this menace, but those projects too have failed to achieve the desired results. This is disconcerting.Many young Nigerians are discontented, and some of them do considerable atrocious things to survive. However, while it is true that the seemingly intractable socioeconomic challenges of the country pose a veritable allurement for people to take precipitate actions to survive, there are also the issues of weak moral fabric and warped value system that make some young people and adults alike to disparage ethical, moral and sometimes legal abuttals in their quest for survival.The questions are: how did we get to this contemptible state? How come that young girls who ought to be at school are flaunting the major streets of Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Ibadan and other cities, hawking their half-naked bodies to any willing buyer? Why has sex become the fad among many students of our institutions? Where lies the future of these young ladies, and what can society do to protect their nobility?More irksome is the all-embracing organised sex trafficking, even within the country. Many young Nigerian girls are being trafficked from one state of the federation to the other just for sex. Recent research conducted by Sympathy Worldwide Foundation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) fighting sex slavery and child trafficking, reveals that several young girls are being trafficked from the hinterland to the cities but as the promises of their “do-gooders” fail, the girls take to the streets to use the same means to help themselves.We call on the government at all levels, anti-prostitution NGOs, parents, churches, mosques, the police and all relevant stakeholders to take concrete steps to end prostitution which is still a crime in our law. People trading in prostitution or keeping brothels should be prosecuted, while men patronising, defiling or seducing our young girls should be brought to justice. The relevant authorities should also intensify their spirited campaigns against the illicit act.Since poverty and unemployment are the major causes of prostitution, our governing authorities should stop paying lip service to these deprivations. The family institution needs to be re-invigorated. If parents were at home performing their parental obligations, their daughters would probably not have taken to the streets. Nigeria possesses an enviable rich cultural and religious heritage which includes living a chaste life and respect for the body and soul.We have ascertained that neighbourhood and peer influence, weak financial, emotional and spiritual support, and molestation experience are some causes of child prostitution. We all must deploy strategies to massively generate awareness of the consequences of engaging in multiple sexual

Nov 29

New Cabell County EMS program helps trauma patients get blood sooner

HUNTINGTON — Cabell County Emergency Medical Services (CCEMS) is the first in West Virginia to administer blood before patients arrive at the hospital. It’s called the prehospital ground transport blood administration program and is in partnership with St. Mary’s Medical Center (SMMC). The program will serve as a model for other West Virginia services. × This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings.

Nov 29

Karnataka health department on alert after surge in respiratory illnesses in China; issues advisory

ByYamini C S Nov 29, 2023 09:48 AM IST Share Via Copy Link The Karnataka health department issued an advisory after a surge in respiratory illnesses in China, and prescribed guidelines to curb the spread of infection. As respiratory illnesses surge among children in China, the Karnataka health department on Tuesday issued an advisory to the public to take precautions and avoid diseases that are communicable through air. The department warned that infants, the elderly, pregnant women, the immunocompromised and those taking long-term medications are more at risk of infection. (For representation) “In view of the recent media reports of surge in respiratory illness among children in China and taking note of the WHO statement on these reported cases, the increase in respiratory illness among children is attributed to usual causes like Influenza, Mycoplasma pneumonia, SARS-CoV-2, etc and not due to any other unusual pathogen,” the department noted in the advisory. We’re now on WhatsApp. Click to join. Seasonal flu is an infectious disease that spreads from person to person through the cough or sneeze of a person with the flu, or through contact with droplets. This self-limiting disease lasts for 5-7 days and causes low morbidity and mortality, the advisory added. The department warned that infants, the elderly, pregnant women, the immunocompromised and those taking long-term medications, particularly steroids, are more at risk of infection and would require hospitalization. What are the symptoms of this Influenza-like respiratory illness? Fever Chills Malaise (a general feeling of discomfort) Loss of appetite Myalgia (pain in muscles) Nausea Sneezing Dry cough READ | ‘Don’t panic unnecessarily’: Karnataka health dept issues advisory after finding Zika virus near Bengaluru READ | Karnataka health dept issues guidelines over Nipah outbreak in Kerala. Details What are some do’s and dont’s for prevention and control? Cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Wash your hands often with soap and water. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth unnecessarily. Avoid visiting crowded places and if visiting such places use a face mask. Maintain basic minimum distance from persons affected with flu. Sleep adequately, be physically active and deal with stress effectively. Drink plenty of water and eat nutritious food. Avoid spitting in public. Avoid travel to places with high incidence of Influenza and other respiratory illnesses. China Karnataka Government Health Influenza Virus Seasonal Influenza

Nov 29

Centre flags surge in China respiratory infections, 5 states on alert mode

Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu have asked hospitals and healthcare staff to ensure preparedness to tackle patients complaining of respiratory ailments. File Photo. Soon after the Centre’s directive to review preparedness in view of a surge in respiratory illnesses among children in China, five states have put their health infrastructure on alert mode. The state governments of Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Tamil Nadu have asked hospitals and healthcare staff to ensure that they are adequately prepared to tackle patients complaining of respiratory ailments. The Karnataka health department has also asked people to be aware of the seasonal flu. Listing the symptoms and risk factors of seasonal flu, the advisory also mentions dos and don’ts. These include covering the mouth and nose while coughing or sneezing, frequent washing of hands, avoiding touching the face, and using masks in crowded spots. Rajasthan health department’s advisory indicated that the situation is “not worrisome at present” but the medical staff should keep watch and prevent spread of infectious diseases. It added that adequate arrangements should be made in paediatric units and medicine departments. Related Articles Australian envoy praises rescue of 41 tunnel workers in Uttarakhand After 10 days, first images of workers trapped in collapsed Uttarakhand tunnel emerge In Gujarat, health minister Rushikesh Patel said the healthcare infrastructure created during the COVID-19 pandemic was being strengthened as a precautionary step in view of the health crisis among children in China. The Gujarat government has asked government officials to review their readiness. In Uttarakhand, the government directed health officials to step up surveillance for cases of respiratory illnesses. Three districts of Uttarakhand — Chamoli, Uttarkashi and Pithoragarh — share borders with China. A statement by the state health department said that while the state hasn’t reported any child pneumonia cases yet, officials have been asked to keep watch as a precautionary measure. The move by the Uttarakhand government comes after the Union Health Ministry’s advisory to states, asking them to review preparedness to tackle any emerging situation. The Union Health Ministry has said the situation is not alarming, and it is closely monitoring it. “All States and Union Territories have been advised to implement ‘Operational Guidelines for Revised Surveillance Strategy in the context of COVID-19’, shared earlier this year, which provides for integrated surveillance of respiratory pathogens presenting as cases of influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory illness (SARI),” the ministry said in a statement. The sudden spike in respiratory illnesses in northern China, particularly among children, has become a cause for concern four years after Covid-19 emerged in the country and went on to become a pandemic that changed the world.