Fourteen newborn babies in a postpartum care center in Shenyang, Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, were reportedly diagnosed with pneumonia recently, with some still receiving treatment in intensive care unit.
The market watchdog of Huanggu district of Shenyang, where the care center named Xinxiangyueshiguang is located, confirmed on Saturday some babies in the center were infected with pneumonia, and that the center has since been closed.
The Shenyang Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that the newborns were infected with a respiratory syncytial virus, the Beijing News reported. How they got infected of the pneumonia has not been announced yet.
Nucleic acid tests for COVID-19 conducted on all relevant personnel came back negative, the market watchdog announced.
The CDC said a recent investigation showed the care center lacked a standard management system and quality disinfection.
A father surnamed Zhang told the media that his child, born on January 6, became infected after being sent to the care center and is now receiving treatment in NICU. He said the first infected baby was taken to a local hospital on January 16.
He questioned why the center failed to inform other parents to take precautionary measures when it clearly knew about the risk of further infections.
The center said it asked parents to take their newborns home as soon as they found out the babies had pneumonia.
The center would refund the rest of the care expenses, and is willing to cover medical expenses not covered by social insurance, according to a handwritten announcement by the center.
Syncytial virus is the most common virus that causes pneumonia in infants, especially children under 1 year old, accounting for one third of the pneumonia among infants, Hou Wei, an expert on respiratory diseases in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, told the Global Times on Saturday.
It is a relatively mild virus, causing moderate fever, coughing, faster breathing, milk choking, or wheezing in the lungs among infants, Hou said. “It is not life-threatening generally, but if the infant received no timely treatment, it would cause complications that will aggravate the condition,” he added.
He noted that pneumonia that occurs after childbirth is often caused by cross-infection, such as transmission via air and objects. Syncytial virus-caused pneumonia can be transmitted from person to person via respiratory tract, but it has low transmission rate, Hou noted.
Photo: screenshot from the care center
