The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan said the country saw 1,772 deaths in the first half of the year some of whom were Chinese nationals.

They describe the illness as an “unknown pneumonia” and, in a warning to Chinese citizens in Kazakhstan, embassy officials said: “The death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus.

“The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus.”

Saul Kisikova, health care department chief in Kazakhstan’s capital spoke to the state’s news agency Kazinform.

He said: “Some 300 people diagnosed with pneumonia are being hospitalised every day.”

Ayzhan Esmagambetova, chief sanitary officer, reportedly said the mortality rate from pneumonia has increased in June by four times in Kazakhstan.

The figures were compared to the same time last year.

She said many people who have fallen ill were not diagnosed with COVID-19.

In Kazakhstan, there are 53,021 cases of COVID-19 and 264 deaths from coronavirus.

President Tokayev said the nation was “in fact facing the second coronavirus wave coupled with a huge uptick in pneumonia cases”.

Pneumonia is an infection in one or both lungs.

In China, there have been 85,399 reported cases of Covid-19.