Motsoaledi warns South Africans to brace for more pandemics amid HMPV outbreak in China
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said that pandemics were likely in the future as climate change and the encroachment of habitats of other species by humans continues.
FILE: Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi. Picture: GCIS
JOHANNESBURG - Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has warned South Africans to brace themselves for more pandemics amid a fresh outbreak of the human metapneumovirus in China.
The new virus, also known as HMPV, is a respiratory illness that presents symptoms similar to COVID-19.
Motsoaledi said that pandemics were likely in the future as climate change and the encroachment of habitats of other species by humans continues.
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The minister was speaking in the North West on Tuesday afternoon on the matter.
Minister Motsoaledi said that they were monitoring the recent HMPV outbreak in China very closely.
He said that Precious Matsoso, the country’s former director-general of health, currently co-chairs the World Health Assembly’s intergovernmental negotiating body sitting in Geneva, Switzerland.
"They are negotiating what must happen if a new pandemic comes on board, what must countries do."
He said that climate change, anti-microbial resistance and the encroachment of other species' habitats by humans, not knowing what diseases those species carry, will result in many more pandemics in the future.
"I believe, and I raised it there at United Nations where I was with the president in September, that the world must accept there will be a lot more pandemics."
Experts in South Africa said there was no reason for panic regarding the recent respiratory HMPV outbreak in China, which mainly affects children under the age of 14.