94Ha Viewpoint
Recently, a piece of news from Russia has attracted the attention of the outside world: an unexplained respiratory infectious disease is spreading in the country, with severe symptoms and extremely rapid progression. It is neither a new crown nor a common cold virus.
The symptoms of infection include coughing up blood and fever lasting for several weeks. Initially, they will feel slightly uncomfortable, but after a few days, the symptoms will deteriorate sharply and they will be unable to get up. Some patients said that even after a few days of treatment, the cough symptoms still exist, and the test results of influenza A, influenza B, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which may cause these symptoms, are all negative.
At present, medical experts are studying new cases of infection, trying to find out the source and treatment of the unknown virus.
On March 31, officials from the Russian “Consumer Rights Protection and Public Welfare Supervision Bureau” (Rospotrebnadzor) issued a statement saying that “there is no evidence that a new or unexplained virus is spreading in the Russian Federation.” The agency is one of the main agencies of the Russian government responsible for public health affairs.
Officials said that the rumors originated from the SHOT channel of the social media platform “Telegram” and were subsequently amplified by multiple local media. According to rumors, patients in multiple cities reported high fever, body aches and severe coughs that lasted for weeks, sometimes accompanied by coughing up blood. “Telegram” has a wide user base and market demand in Russia.
A woman named Alexandra told SHOT that on the fifth day of her illness, she began coughing up blood, and the cough did not stop even after taking antibiotics for a week. Doctors eventually diagnosed her with mycoplasma pneumonia. This is a bacterial infection that resembles many symptoms of viral influenza and pneumonia. Other patients described symptoms including fatigue and pain. Doctors listed the cause as “unexplained acute upper respiratory tract infection” and recommended calling an ambulance if symptoms worsened.
These reports were subsequently reprinted by mainstream Russian media including Lenta.ru and Newizv.ru. “It’s a nightmare, my ribs hurt because of the cough, I can’t eat, and sometimes even the medicine makes me feel uncomfortable,” one patient told Newizv. “The cough has not gone away for more than a month, and the fever has lasted for nearly three weeks. I didn’t feel this bad when I had COVID-19,” said another.
In a statement, the Consumer Protection and Public Welfare Supervision Bureau said that in the Russian Federation, the epidemiological situation, including SARS, influenza, COVID-19 and community-acquired pneumonia, is stable and under full control, and the incidence rate has declined. No new viruses or viruses with major mutations have been found in the ongoing epidemiological and genomic surveillance.
The agency has not announced any additional public health measures in response to the reports, saying that the current monitoring system is sufficient to detect the epidemic, and the number of hospitalizations or regional infection clusters has not exceeded seasonal standards.
Gennady Onishchenko, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, also questioned the rumors. He told Russia’s TASS news agency that the official report of the Pasteur Institute in St. Petersburg did not involve any information about the new virus, but this information should not be ignored and we will carefully decipher it. People should not hype it up for the time being to avoid unnecessary panic, and wait for more research data to emerge to draw conclusions.
Health agencies also urged the public to seek medical guidance through official channels. For patients reporting persistent symptoms, infectious disease experts said people should trust their doctors and not rush to draw conclusions based on what they see online.
