What do we know about HMPV, this respiratory virus which is spreading in China and on social networks?

Thursday 09th January 2025 07:29 PM

Five years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the first cases of which were detected in central China, the respiratory virus HMPV (also called MPVh) is in the news after an increase in cases of contamination in the north of the country. False information has fueled fears of a new pandemic. But what about it? France 24 takes stock.

While just five years ago, a “mysterious pneumonia outbreak” in Wuhan, central China, led to the Covid-19 pandemic, a “new” respiratory virus – human metapneumovirus (HMPV, also called MPVh) – has been spreading panic on social networks since the beginning of the year, fueled by numerous false information.

Images of allegedly overwhelmed hospitals began to circulate, reviving the traumas of a recent era when health services around the world were buckling in the face of chain contaminations caused by Covid. Other alarmist information also indicated that a state of emergency had been declared by the Chinese authorities, or that the mortality rate associated with the virus stood at some 43%. Information since verified and largely denied.

Also, according to her, the high number of HMPV cases identified in China is “perhaps not unusual”.

Cold-like symptoms