Members of medical staff see patients at a fever clinic at Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning province, Dec 15, 2022. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

China will likely see simultaneous circulations of multiple respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19, influenza, and mycoplasma pneumoniae infections, this winter and spring, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of State Council said in a circular released on Friday.

Authorities said that the risk of a rebound in COVID-19 cases this winter remains, though the current epidemic situation is stable.

Personal protection measures and health monitoring efforts at nursery care and elderly care homes, as well as schools, should be reinforced and vaccination campaigns targeting the elderly, people with preexisting diseases and children should be intensified

They added that cases of influenza and mycoplasma pneumoniae have been on the rise since October. Flu cases are expected to register a peak in the coming months, while mycoplasma pneumoniae cases will continue to spread fast in some regions.

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To cope with the increasing infectious respiratory cases, authorities said that they will step up monitoring of key contagious illnesses and strengthen the use of different sources of data from online reporting systems, fever clinics, sentinel hospitals, and laboratory test results.

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Personal protection measures and health monitoring efforts at nursery care and elderly care homes, as well as schools, should be reinforced and vaccination campaigns targeting the elderly, people with preexisting diseases and children should be intensified.

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Localities are instructed to allocate medical resources to fit the intensity of regional epidemic situations and strengthen the supply of key medications, especially pediatric drugs.

Epidemic control measures at ports, such as measuring body temperatures of inbound personnel, and carrying out epidemiological investigations and medical screenings, should also be strictly implemented, they added.