Regarding recent reports of pneumonia in Kazakhstan

Some Chinese media outlets are claiming that Kazakhstan has reported cases of unknown pneumonia, more deadly than the coronavirus.

The Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan has officially stated that this information is FALSE.

It should be noted that the World Health Organization has introduced codes for pneumonia in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). On the contrary, COVID-19 is diagnosed clinically or epidemiologically, for example with the symptom of ground-glass opacity (GGO) of the lungs, and is confirmed in a laboratory setting.

In this regard, Kazakhstan, in line with other countries, monitors and keeps a record of these types of pneumonia, which enables the taking of timely management-level decisions aimed at stabilising the incidence and prevalence of the coronavirus infection.

At a 9 July briefing, the Minister of Health of Kazakhstan Alexey Tsoi spoke about the overall number of pneumonia cases in the country: of bacterial, fungal, and viral origin, including “viral pneumonia of unspecified etiology”, as per the ICD-10 classification.

Therefore, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan emphasizes that the Chinese media reports are FALSE.