Chinese hospitals have been “overwhelmed with sick children” as an outbreak of pneumonia

Chinese hospitals have been “overwhelmed with sick children” as an outbreak of pneumonia escalates in cities across the country, including Beijing, according to reports.

ProMed – a large, publicly available surveillance system which monitors human and animal disease outbreaks worldwide – issued a notification late on Tuesday detailing a reported epidemic of “undiagnosed pneumonia” in children. 

It was a ProMed alert in late December 2019 that brought a mystery virus later named Sars-Cov-2 to the attention of many doctors and scientists, including senior officials at the World Health Organization.