Bar­ba­dos health au­thor­i­ties say they have no cred­i­ble in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ing an out­break of res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness in Chi­na in­volv­ing var­i­ous virus­es, in­clud­ing Hu­man Metap­neu­movirus (HM­PV).

HM­PV is a virus that usu­al­ly caus­es symp­toms sim­i­lar to a cold.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO), Dr. Ken­neth George, re­spond­ing to con­cerns be­ing raised na­tion­al­ly, said that the Min­istry of Health and Well­ness has re­ceived no re­ports from the Pan Amer­i­can Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (PA­HO) or the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) to sup­port the claims of an un­usu­al in­crease in res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness in Chi­na.

He said in ad­di­tion, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) has in­di­cat­ed that there are cur­rent­ly no cred­i­ble re­ports to sup­port the re­cent claims.

Dr. George re­mind­ed the pub­lic that dur­ing the win­ter pe­ri­od, al­so known as the flu sea­son, it is ex­pect­ed that there would be an in­crease in res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness among the lo­cal pop­u­la­tion as welll as vis­i­tors.

He said this is sim­i­lar to the find­ing in the Unit­ed States where they ex­pect an in­crease in in­fluen­za, Res­pi­ra­to­ry Syn­cy­tial Virus (RSV), COVID-19, and oth­er res­pi­ra­to­ry virus­es.

Bar­ba­dos usu­al­ly sees an uptick in in­fluen­za cas­es at this time of year and the CMO said that ac­cord­ing to CARPHA, at the end of De­cem­ber 2024, res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness ac­tiv­i­ty in the Caribbean had a mixed pat­tern with a slight in­crease in in­fluen­za H1N1, de­clin­ing RSV, and con­tin­ued low lev­els of COVID-19.

The pub­lic health lab­o­ra­to­ry here has de­tect­ed a mix­ture over the pe­ri­od in­clud­ing in­fluen­za, RSV, Rhi­no virus (com­mon cold) and HM­PV. These ill­ness­es have sim­i­lar flu-like symp­toms in­clud­ing cough, fever, and nasal con­ges­tion. In some cas­es, they can lead to bron­chi­tis or pneu­mo­nia.

The Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer said that the de­tec­tion of res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases is not a cause for pan­ic, in­di­cat­ing that Hu­man Metap­neu­movirus is a com­mon virus, which is usu­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with mild ill­ness.

He said that the best ways peo­ple can pro­tect them­selves from be­com­ing ill or to avoid spread­ing any res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es are by prac­tis­ing good hy­giene, in­clud­ing fre­quent hand wash­ing and sani­tis­ing, cov­er­ing sneezes or coughs, and keep­ing fre­quent­ly touched sur­faces clean.

Dr. George said it is al­so help­ful to avoid close con­tact with per­sons who are al­ready sick, or to stay at home when sick, not­ing that el­der­ly per­sons, preg­nant women, and those with com­pro­mised im­mune sys­tems should con­tin­ue to ex­er­cise care dur­ing flu sea­son.

He said the Min­istry of Health and Well­ness would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing the de­vel­op­ment of res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es na­tion­al­ly and glob­al­ly, and keep the pub­lic in­formed.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Jan 8, CMC

CMC/ag/ir/2025