WHO on Kazakhstan pneumonia and virus transmission

The World Health Organization's (WHO) emergencies chief on Friday said the agency believes an unexplained pneumonia outbreak in Kazakhstan is likely due to the coronavirus.

WHO Health Emergencies Programme Executive Director Dr. Michael Ryan said Kazakh authorities have reported more than 10,000 lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in the last week and just under 50,000 cases and 264 deaths as of Tuesday.

“We’re looking at the actual testing and the quality of testing to make sure that there haven’t been false negative tests for some of those other pneumonias that are provisionally tested negative”, Ryan said.

Ryan said the WHO was working with local authorities to review X-rays and look at the pattern of pneumonia cases to see if they were consistent with COVID-19.

“While we believe that many of these cases will be diagnosed as COVID-19, we keep an open mind”, he said.

The WHO's Technical Lead on COVID-19, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, said reports of outbreaks stemming from places with "poor ventilation" such as gyms and nightclubs could be linked to airborne transmission of the virus.

She said more research was needed on how the pathogen was passed in these settings, but said close contact was still understood to be the "dominant" mode of transmission.