5 ways HMPV is different to Covid: Symptoms, spread and who it affects
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Images of the HMPV virus sweeping China have triggered a mass case of Covid-related deja vu, with many fearing another potential pandemic could be on the cards. Searches have risen for terms including “UK lockdown” and “pandemic”, but experts say HMPV (human metapneumovirus) causing a repeat of the past is extremely unlikely.
“There’s just this tendency post-Covid to treat every infectious-disease anything as an emergency when it’s not,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious-diseases physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Washington Post. “You wouldn’t probably be calling me in 2018 about this.”.
Similarly, University of East Anglia medical professor Paul Hunter told the BBC there were no current “signs of a more serious global issue.". While on the surface, HMPV and Covid may seem similar — they’re both respiratory illnesses and they have similar symptoms, including a cough, fever and nasal congestion — the key to understanding the risk level is understanding the differences between HMPV and Covid-19, which virologists are calling “very different”.
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Here, we outline five elements that separate the two viruses. The main thing to know about HMPV is that it has been around for a long time, whereas Covid was a novel virus. HMPV was first identified in the Netherlands in 2001, nearly 25 years ago. This is one of the factors causing experts to feel so calm about the current spread in China.
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