Fears Britain could be hit by own outbreak of China’s ‘mystery’ pneumonia as experts blame lockdowns for alarming surge of ‘myco’ bug sweeping world

China’s ‘mystery’ pneumonia wave could hit Britain imminently, experts warned today.

Officials in Beijing last week sparked fears of a new pandemic after sounding the alarm over an unusual spike in cases among children.

Authorities ruled out a new virus, instead pinning the blame on a winter surge in respiratory illnesses, including a bug called mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Since China raised concerns, cases of ‘myco’ have exploded in the Netherlands, Denmark and parts of the US.

Experts have blamed the effects of Covid lockdowns, warning that other countries might suffer a ‘bad year’. Pandemic measures interrupted the spread of routine bugs and weakened immunity across populations. 

Britain could itself see an uptick in cases of myco – including ‘white lung syndrome’ –in the coming weeks, scientists claimed. 

This UK Health Security Agency graph shows the average number of Mycoplasma pneumoniae cases reported in England and Wales over 3-week periods between 2010 and part-way through 2020. It shows how cases tend to spike in three to four year periods

The bacterial infection typically causes a flu-like illness, sometimes called ‘walking pneumonia’ because of its mildness. Children are particularly vulnerable.

Professor Ian Jones, a virologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline: ‘As we have a small physical break with Europe we might get away with it this season.

‘The important point is that this sort of “bounce back” should be expected and the public health system should be aware of it.’

He added that it was unlikely the recent surge in myco is down to a new contagious or deadlier strain.

Instead, Professor Jones attributed the wave cropping up across the world to a lack of immunity in the population following lockdown and anti-Covid measures.

Masks, social distancing, improved hand hygiene and a lack of people mixing led to decline the spread of other non-Covid pathogens during the pandemic’s first years, leading to a concept called ‘immunity debt’. 

Bugs can hit harder than normal if swathes of the population haven’t been exposed to a bug, and consequentially built-up defences against it.

Numerous countries, including the UK and the US, experienced post-lockdown rises in viral winter pathogens such as flu and RSV. 

In the case of myco, Professor Jones said: ‘Circulating cases would have generated immunity in the population, particularly kids in school, which would have then held the cases down for a couple of subsequent years, only to cycle again a few years later when immunity had declined.’ 

‘Restriction on movement (from lockdowns) would have kept what would have been a natural immunization cycle from happening.’

This means there would be a ‘bigger susceptible population when the next natural uptick occurs’, he said. 

Professor Jones added: ‘By this reasoning we should expect something like this in most countries that went through lockdowns although when the uptick will occur is not certain.’

Professor Paul Hunter, an infectious diseases expert at the University of East Anglia, said myco was ‘somewhat unusual’ compared to other respiratory pathogens.

Myco itself causes big waves every few years because of waning immunity, he said.

He added: ‘This is probably because immunity against myco lasts somewhat longer than immunity against flu or Covid, though we still don’t know how long immunity lasts.’ 

Professor Hunter added that the last global wave seemingly struck in 2019/2020, just before Covid. 

This combined with the slower transmission of myco compared to other winter bugs could have led to the current ‘build-up’ of cases being observed in multiple countries.

He also said the outbreak could be worse in China because of Beijing’s harsher and longer Covid lockdown, creating a greater immunity debt than that seen in places like the UK. 

‘This is the first full winter that China has not had general Covid restrictions in place,’ he said.

‘We had our first open winter last year and saw a bad flu and RSV season. 

‘So China has had another year to further reduce population immunity to these infections and that is why I suspect it is particularly bad this year for them.’ 

The above image shows the lungs during ‘white lung syndrome’ or acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is diagnosed via the white spots or opaque areas appearing in the lungs. The above patient was a 57-year-old man in 2014

Beijing previously reported an upsurge in influenza-like illnesses since mid-October.

But the outbreak only started making headlines earlier this month when local media reported hospitals were becoming overwhelmed by the volume of cases. 

The wave has been accompanied by chilling images of Chinese workers in hazmat suits disinfecting spaces and public health warnings to wear face masks and social distance, in echoes of the earliest days of the Covid pandemic. 

Like Denmark, which recently reported an epidemic, the UK tends to experience a myco surge every three to four years as part of a normal cycle.

Data collected by the UK Health Security Agency suggests a small spike in cases was recorded in early 2020, and prior to that in 2016 and 2012. 

It comes as more parts of the US begin to report their own wave of cases of child pneumonia.

Massachusetts has now joined Ohio in reporting a spike, with the latter reporting 142 cases detected since August, a figure health officials described as ‘extremely high’.

While there were initial concerns the outbreak in China could be caused by a new pathogen these have slowly started to abate. 

The wave of cases sparked global concern due to a perceived lack of transparency from China when Covid was first spotted in Wuhan in late 2019, shortly before the virus swept the globe.

Earlier this week the World Health Organization (WHO) requested more data from China on the outbreak of pneumonia in children.

This followed the UN-agency’s initial, and unusually public, request for information from Beijing earlier last month.  

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, a WHO epidemiologist, said the agency was ‘following up with China’ as hospitals across the country continue to be overwhelmed.

Face masks and social distancing are again being recommended China in a chilling echo of the early days of Covid.

The country’s pneumonia spike has been dubbed ‘white lung syndrome’ because of the way the lung damage shows up on medical scans.