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The original clip, without the superimposed text, was posted on the television station’s Weibo account. The presenter can be heard saying in Mandarin: “Since October, there has been a significant increase in the number of young people with mycoplasma pneumonia. “
He added that at least one hospital in Nanjing is operating at full capacity due to the increase.
AFP reported on the situation in China in November, after the country’s National Health Commission reported an increase in respiratory illnesses, mainly among children.
The Chinese government has attributed the situation to the end of Covid restrictions, the arrival of the cold season and the influx of known pathogens, adding influenza, mycoplasma pneumonia, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that reasons Covid.
On 23 November, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that no pathogens or symptoms had been recorded in the north of the country, providing evidence provided through the Chinese authorities.
Similar posts falsely linking Covid vaccines to emerging cases have also been shared on Facebook and Gettr.
Health experts and the government told AFP there is no evidence that the rise in respiratory illnesses in China is linked to Covid vaccination, or that other people vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 have weakened their immune systems.
“Mycoplasma pneumonia can cause quite serious infections in young and old people. There is no evidence that Mycoplasma pneumonia is a side effect of the vaccine,” said Siddharth Sridhar, assistant clinical professor in the University’s Department of Microbiology. of Hong Kong. Kong, told AFP on December 15, 2023 (archived link).
There is “no evidence” that Covid-19 vaccines weaken a person’s immune system, making them vulnerable to other diseases. AFP has already debunked this false claim here, here and here.
Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biology at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told AFP on December 15, 2023: “Covid vaccines are effective and the side effect profile is well understood. “.
William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in the United States said that to date, none of the vaccine safety monitoring systems around the world had observed any connection between Covid vaccines and weakened immune systems in individuals (archived link).
“None of the vaccine safety surveillance systems has picked up a signal linking Covid vaccines to a weakened or diminished immune system that would predispose vaccine recipients to any infections, including those caused by Mycoplasma pneumonia,” he told AFP on December 15, 2023.
Mycoplasma pneumonia infections occur “year-round in many other climates around the world,” with outbreaks every few years, according to an article published in The Lancet (link archived).
Schaffner said, “The accumulation of mycoplasma infections that has been reported is part of the expected and usual accumulation in those infections that are noticed year after year. “
AFP had already debunked errors falsely linking mycoplasma pneumonia to Covid-19 vaccines.