‘Pneumonia’ in Kazakhstan may be Covid-19, says WHO

London, July 11

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The emergencies chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) says the agency believes an unexplained pneumonia outbreak in Kazakhstan is likely due to the coronavirus.

Dr Michael Ryan says Kazakh authorities have reported more than 10,000 lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases in the last week and just under 50,000 cases and 264 deaths as of Tuesday.

He said many pneumonia cases were likely to be Covid-19 and “just have not been diagnosed correctly”. Ryan says the WHO was working with local authorities to review X-rays and look at the pattern of pneumonia cases to see if they were consistent with Covid-19.

More than 12.59 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 5,60,026 have died. Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December. — AP

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