China on Thursday called on the World Health Organization to take a "fair" stance on Covid-19, after WHO criticized Beijing's assessment of the epidemic.

The country lifted without notice in early December most of its measures against Covid-19, which had allowed its population to be largely protected from the virus since 2020.

It has since faced its worst outbreak of cases, while hospitals and crematoriums appear overwhelmed.

However, authorities are reporting very few deaths linked to Covid-19, after a controversial change in methodology for accounting for cases.

“The current figures released by China under-represent the real impact of the disease in terms of hospital admissions, intensive care admissions and especially in terms of deaths,” said Michael Ryan, in charge of the management. health emergencies at WHO.

"We hope that [...] the WHO will maintain a science-based, objective and impartial position and play an active role in the global response to the challenges of the epidemic," a spokeswoman told reporters on Thursday. of Chinese diplomacy, Mao Ning.

Mao again assured that her country shared “relevant information and data” on the Covid-19 epidemic and underlined the “close cooperation” between China and the WHO.

From now on, only people who died directly from respiratory failure linked to Covid-19 are counted in Chinese statistics.

China, which has 1.4 billion inhabitants, has recorded only 23 deaths from Covid since December, despite an unprecedented wave of contamination for three years in the country.