The World Health Organization said Friday that the reports of "unknown pneumonia" reported in Kazakhstan could be undiagnosed COVID-19.

File photo by CFP

The recent spike of COVID-19 cases in Kazakhstan may indicate a large number of undiagnosed COVID-19 cases in the community, so the "unknown pneumonia" could be false negative results or another pneumonia case that tested negative for COVID-19, the World Health Organization emergency program director Michael Ryan explained.

The WHO is working with local authorities to observe and assess the quality of tests and X-ray results. It does not rule out any possibility until a final conclusion has been reached, said Ryan.

(Compiled by Wei Jia)