LONDON: Dr Michael Ryan, Emergency Chief, World Health Organization (WHO), said that the health agency believes an unprecedented epidemic of pneumonia in Kazakhstan is probably due to coronavirus. Dr Ryan added that more than 10,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the last week and just under 50,000 cases and 264 deaths as of Tuesday, July 9, have been reported by the Kazakh authorities.
Dr Ryan said they are looking at the actual testing and the quality of testing to make sure that there have not been false negative tests for some of those other pneumonias that are provisionally tested negative. He added that many cases of pneumonia were likely to be COVID-19, and just not being correctly diagnosed.
WHO team in Kazakhstan was working with local authorities to review X-rays and analyse pattern of pneumonia cases to see if they were consistent with COVID-19, Dr Ryan said. He said while they believe that many of these cases will be diagnosed as COVID-19, they keep an open mind.