Kazakhstan dismissed as incorrect on Friday a warning by China's embassy for its citizens to guard against an outbreak of pneumonia in the central Asian nation that it described as being more lethal than the coronavirus.
In a statement late on Thursday on its official WeChat account, the Chinese embassy flagged a "significant increase" in cases in the Kazakh cities of Atyrau, Aktobe and Shymkent since mid-June.
On Friday, however, Kazakhstan's healthcare ministry branded Chinese media reports based on the embassy statement as "fake news".