(Not so) mysterious pneumonia in Korea, Scotland, France

And a bit of conspiracy

While I was writing another article centered around peptides and doing research, and other (Language Model) related tasks, signals went into overdrive here. A reminder…

(Not so) mysterious pneumonia outbreak in China

In the last few months, China has been facing a “muli-demic” of Influenza, RSV, and other respiratory diseases, including Mycoplasma Pneumonia. But in the last week, a specific narrative went viral on social media, driven by Chinese social media, China was facing an unprecedented outbreak of “unknown pneumonia”, and the government authorities still low-key refuse to information to the WHO.

But within the last 48 hours, news came that South Korea (another article, in English, can be found here), Scotland, Switzerland, and France (another source in English) are also facing an unprecedented outbreak of respiratory viruses, but in their case, the cause of pneumonia in kids was diagnosed as Mycoplasma. The UK right now faces a rise in respiratory viruses but no mention Mycoplasma yet. Taiwan’s CDC issued a health alert to the medical community to expect outbreaks of the disease.

I expect other countries to follow. A translation of the South Korean article, which is the one that gave me the first hint can be found below.

Scotland numbers, sent by a friend

​The number of Mycoplasma pneumonia patients in Korea has more than doubled in the past month. Eighty percent of new patients are children in elementary school or younger. According to the summary by the Disease Management Agency, of the 236 patients hospitalized for bacterial acute respiratory infections in the 45th week (November 5-11), 226 people (95.8%) had Mycoplasma pneumonia.

Mycoplasma pneumonia began to increase at the end of August, and with the arrival of colder weather, the number of patients has rapidly increased. From 90 people a month ago (Week 41, October 8-14), it has exceeded 200 people this month. Half of the new patients are 7-12 years old (49.1%), followed by 1-6 years old (30.5%).

Mycoplasma pneumonia is an infectious disease caused by bacteria and occurs annually like influenza. It has been prevalent nationwide in four-year cycles in 2011, 2015, and 2019, and an expansion of infections is expected this year as well.

Recently, Mycoplasma pneumonia has also been spreading in China, where the epidemic cycle is similar to Korea, especially among children and adolescents. However, compared to the most recent epidemic in 2019 (523 people in Week 45), the number of patients in Korea is relatively restrained.

In most literature, a consensus among the scientific and medical community is the 4-year cycle of Mycoplasma Pneumonia. “epidemics of M pneumoniae infections recur every 4 years on average in EW affecting all age groups, predominantly children and adults <44 years of age”.

England and Wales experienced a peak in 2019, South Korea also faced an epidemic in 2019-2020, and China faced an epidemic in children in…2019, where the numbers of children between 3 and 6 years old were higher than all other age groups. These stronger outbreaks can last as long as 10 months. Taiwan had one in 2019.

Per the significant amount of evidence and epidemiological studies, not only does this pathogen follow a rather precise cycle of every 4 years, but the lockdowns displaced some of the minor outbreaks into full-blown epidemics. I firmly believe what I stated prior, not just by displacing the virus, an effect known as viral interference, but also after-effects of rampant Covid infection are at play here. Plus the mRNA vaccination, but this is a subject for the week.

Now, sometimes on Sundays, I decide to indulge in conspiracies, and so, here are some conspiracies for you to waste a few minutes thinking about it. That black (clandestine) laboratory in California, remember ?

It had Mycoplasma among its infectious agents stored by the lot. The following is the real food for thought. In 2018 the European Union created a new effort to address Mycoplasma infections in both animals and humans. Here is the project page. This program is called MycoSynVac “Developing Smart Vaccines for Farm Animals”.

“MycoSynVac is a 5 year project that received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 634942.”

Source

Engineered live bacteria suppress Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection in mouse lung and dissolve endotracheal-tube biofilms

We expect our M. pneumoniae-engineered strain to be able to treat biofilm-associated infections in the respiratory tract.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk ! To be clear, this last part is just for fun, I don’t actually think there is a huge gain of function gone bad thing here. Although a reminder that the WHO’s Pandemic Treaty is still being pushed. Never let a crisis go to waste, indeed.

If you chose or choose to support my work, thank you !