Xie expresses that what he has experienced in recent days has been a terrible déjà vu. This thirty-something entrepreneur, more than fearing the viral disease that has been lurking in his neighborhood, what he has felt is panic due to the echoes that accompanied it: military personnel disinfecting the streets, quarantines in hospitals, officials forcibly entering apartments to fumigate and take blood samples, loudspeakers everywhere repeating alarming messages in a loop...
"Five years ago, two neighbors who work as volunteers in the neighborhood committee came to my house to give me masks. At the beginning of August, the same two neighbors knocked on my door to distribute mosquito nets," explains Xie from his neighborhood on the outskirts of Foshan, one of the major manufacturing centers in the south of China, which has been under siege all summer by mosquitoes transmitting a painful viral disease that has already infected around 8,000 people in the Asian country.
The disease caused by a virus of the same name is known as Chikungunya. To combat it, Chinese officials have resorted to the old manual that guided the feared national policy known as "Zero Covid" during the pandemic. At times, as Xie points out, some flashes of those extreme measures reappeared in a country that still carries many traumas from the three years that over 1.4 billion people spent under the yoke of prolonged restrictions.
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"Officials fumigating streets, forcibly entering homes to collect samples, quarantines... The vast majority of us have continued to lead a normal life, but there have been moments that have been like reliving a nightmare with the alerts coming from all sides," says Yang, another resident of Foshan.
New deployment against the virus: drones and giant mosquitoes
Authorities in this city deployed drones last week to identify more precisely from the air where the breeding grounds of infected mosquitoes were located. "These drones have taken aerial photographs in over 170 sites that have provided high-resolution images guiding sanitation teams with precision," local officials stated.
Scientists also mobilized to release giant elephant mosquitoes, a species whose larvae feed on carriers of the virus, while in the ponds of this city with over nine and a half million inhabitants, more than 5,000 insect-eating fish were released.
In the government channels of WeChat, the Chinese WhatsApp, experts from centers for disease control and prevention continuously informed that chikungunya is transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes and not directly from person to person; that it usually causes mild symptoms, especially fever, fatigue, and muscle pain, and is rarely fatal. All this information left many residents of southern China puzzled as to why in Foshan - which raised its public health emergency response to level 3, the second lowest in a four-level system - as well as in other affected cities in Guangdong province, alarms and extreme measures from pandemic times were being resurrected.
There have been episodes of violations of basic rights of citizens due to forced intrusion into homes. The case that angered the social mass the most was the one that occurred in the port city of Zhanjiang. A single mother posted on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X, a video showing uniformed police officers entering her children's room at night to take blood samples from the sleeping children.
It was the employees of a pharmacy in the neighborhood who alerted the authorities that the woman had purchased fever medications because one of her children was sick. When agents and officials showed up at the residence in the morning to test the children, the mother refused and did not open the door for them. Hours later, taking advantage of the fact that she was working the night shift and that the children were alone sleeping, the police forcibly entered the house to take samples from the minors. The entire scene was captured by the camera the mother had in her children's room.
This case went viral on Chinese social media. Numerous videos also circulated showing workers with masks and military personnel spraying parks and streets with insecticides, which reminded many of the critical moments during the pandemic when an army of "soldiers" in white protective suits sprayed every corner with disinfectant. Some residents of Foshan protested because employees who used to take everyone's temperature at the entrance during the pandemic were now back spraying all neighbors with mosquito repellents without asking. Those who refuse are not allowed to enter their homes.
"Officials fumigating streets, forcibly entering homes to collect samples, quarantines... There have been moments that have been like reliving a nightmare"
In many neighborhoods, community workers have been going door to door to inspect homes and ensure that residents do not accumulate containers with water, which attract infected mosquitoes. Authorities have warned that those who refuse to cooperate may face a fine of 10,000 yuan (around 1,200 euros) or even criminal charges for "obstructing the prevention of infectious diseases."
Local media reported that residents of five apartment blocks experienced power outages as a punishment for refusing to cooperate. In Foshan and other affected cities in Guangdong, as well as in some neighborhoods in northern Hong Kong, quarantine rooms were set up within hospitals where infected individuals are being sent and enclosed in compartments covered with mosquito nets. This policy against virus spread has been implemented in China since the SARS outbreak in 2003.
In pharmacies, just like during Covid outbreaks, employees were instructed to track customers buying medications for fever, rashes, or muscle pains. Many skyscrapers in Foshan light up every night with messages reminding residents of the measures they should take to prevent infection. "Companies, factories, and residential complexes are required to carry out large-scale sanitation campaigns. Efforts should focus on cleaning up garbage and debris from waste collection points, underground parking lots, alleys, green areas, and bushes. All households must empty water from pots and unused bottles," they indicate.
Neighborhood committee volunteers have been distributing mosquito nets and mosquito repellents in residential areas. In Foshan, the majority of infections have been reported, but over 200 cases also emerged within a 160-kilometer radius of the outbreak epicenter, in a dozen areas of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao.
"Everything is under control," authorities claim
On Sunday, health authorities in Guangdong stated that they had "preliminarily controlled" the outbreak after reporting 1,387 new cases in the previous seven days, a significant decrease from the around 3,000 identified in the early days of August.
The chikungunya outbreak in southern China prompted some countries to issue travel alerts. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised its citizens to take additional precautions when visiting Guangdong province, raising the alert to "Level 2." US authorities explained that there are two approved vaccines against this virus, but they are not available in China.
"Everything is under control," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokespersons reiterated when asked about the travel alerts. In response to the attention generated, the World Health Organization said that severe cases and deaths are rare and occur mainly in infants or older people with underlying health conditions, especially when they require hospitalization due to the risk of organ damage. According to the European Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, as of last July, around 240,000 cases of chikungunya have been recorded, including 90 deaths in 16 countries. The countries reporting the highest number of infections were Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, and Peru.
Experts have noted that the chikungunya outbreak in Foshan is the largest since its emergence in China in 2008, although the virus was first identified in Tanzania in 1952. Its name derives from a word in the Makonde language, a tribe in this African country, and means "that which bends," due to the intense pain it can cause. The first case in the Asian country, in a citizen who arrived from abroad, was identified on July 8.