HMPV cases in northern China declining, says country's health official

Amid global concerns, China on Sunday said that the cases of infections with the flu-like human metapneumovirus (HMPV) are declining. Wang Liping, a researcher at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, emphasised that HMPV is not a new virus and has been with humans for at least several decades.

Wang added that the increase in recent years in the number of cases of the virus, first detected in the Netherlands in 2001, is due to better detection methods.