The Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted on Thursday that an escalating outbreak of Chikungunya, a viral disease carried by mosquitoes, in southern Guangdong province was “under control” and the Communist Party was adequately keeping the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) updated on the situation.
China’s state-run Global Times newspaper quoted regime-approved experts who declared that any warning to foreign travelers was “unacceptable,” a response to a report by Bloomberg News on Wednesday in which a spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shared that the agency was considering issuing a travel warning for China over the outbreak.
Chikungunya is a viral infection that spreads through bites from various species of mosquitos, most commonly the Aedes aegypti, also known to spread Zika virus, and Aedes albopictus. According to the W.H.O., the most common symptoms are fever and severe joint pain, as well as “joint swelling, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue, and rash.” Most medical experts consider Chikungunya to be rarely deadly, though it often causes more severe infections in elderly individuals, infants, or those with other health problems, but its symptoms are often extremely painful and debilitating.
“Most patients recover fully from the infection; however, occasional cases of eye, heart, and neurological complications have been reported with CHIKV infections,” the W.H.O. notes in its profile of the virus.
Guangdong province, according to the Chinese National Health Commission, documented nearly 3,000 new cases of the disease between July 20 to 26, prompting local officials to rapidly implement various measures to exterminate mosquitos. The cases, while mild according to the Chinese government, have prompted some concern internationally.
“CDC is aware of the reported chikungunya outbreak in Guangdong Province in China and is currently assessing the size and extent of the outbreak,” a spokesperson for the American agency told Bloomberg News on Wednesday, confirming that the CDC is expecting to soon issue a travel warning for Americans to be aware of the spread of the virus in China.
Asked about the report on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun insisted the situation was “under control” and Beijing was behaving responsibly on the matter.
“The [Chinese health] commission said the disease is treatable, preventable, and under control,” Guo shared. “We’ve learned that China has maintained communication with the W.H.O. on that. The Chinese government takes seriously the health of its own people and foreign nationals in China.”
“We will continue to make sure it is comfortable, safe, and convenient for both Chinese and foreigners to travel in China,” he added.
The pages of the Global Times reinforced this assurance of appropriate handling of the matter, citing “experts” who dismissed the idea of travel advisories.
“Chinese experts said such a notice appears to be unnecessary, as travel to China is not becoming risky due to the disease and with effective prevention and control measures in the country, the infections are controllable,” the Times shared.
One such “medical expert,” Zhuang Shilihe, went as far as to predict that any foreigner becoming infected with Chikungunya in China was “virtually unlikely.” Multiple other experts insisted on highlighting the local government’s “mosquito control measures” as further evidence that any concern was unwarranted.
The Global Times has previously described the mosquito control measures in the province as including the release of “over 5,000 larva-eating fish” into the lakes of Foshan city and the deployment of drones to “detect accumulated water on rooftops, storage sheds, and other hard-to-reach areas where mosquito larvae are likely to breed.”
The Chinese NHC, in its press conference on Tuesday, described a plan for responding to the growing number of cases, including increasing “sanitation and disinfection” protocol as well as growing “quality control of relevant testing and management” in hospitals.
“It also stressed sound public health education and information release to boost people’s confidence in the fight,” according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.
The government of China lost a significant amount of trust from the international community as a result of its handling of the Wuhan novel coronavirus outbreak in late 2019, which escalated into a pandemic that has killed over 7 million people since escaping the borders of the country in 2020. The Chinese Communist Party took a long list of actions that exacerbated the emergency situation in Wuhan and abroad, including detaining and silencing doctors, failing to properly inform the W.H.O. about the spread of the infectious disease, allowing millions to leave the city and spread the disease worldwide, and hosting superspreader events that facilitated infections.
To date, the Chinese government has not admitted that the coronavirus pandemic originated in China, spreading a bizarre conspiracy theory that the virus originated in a U.S. Army facility in Maryland. Beijing has also not helped to coordinate any new investigations into the origin of the virus after the notorious 2021 W.H.O. probe that even W.H.O. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus dismissed as insufficient.
The W.H.O. has not at press time elevated its alerts over concerns about the spread of Chikungunya in China.
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