HERSHEY, Pa. — Doctors in central Pennsylvania are seeing a rise in walking or atypical pneumonia cases caused by mycoplasma pneumoniae, especially in young children.
"One of the reasons this has been such a concern is because it doesn't respond to typical antibiotic therapies for pneumonias and can also look a lot like viral pneumonias, which are the most common cause of pneumonia in children," said Dr. Amy Dooley, pediatric pulmonologist at Penn State Health Children's Hospital.
The CDC says these infections can occur at any age, most often occur among children ages 5–17 and young adults.
Dr. Dooley says it's not a condition healthcare professionals typically see in preschool-aged children, but now children ages 2-4 are making up the largest proportional rise in cases.
Young patients with asthma, those born prematurely and those with other underlying respiratory issues are at higher risk of having more severe cases which require hospitalization, more aggressive treatments, or oxygen therapies.
Dr. Dooley says some higher-risk patients are ending up in the ICU.
Children who have mycoplasma pneumoniae may seem like they have a cold which just doesn't want to go away.
Many children can recover without antibiotics, but those with underlying health conditions are at a higher risk of having more complicated cases.
According to the CDC, mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria can damage the lining of the respiratory tract, including the throat, windpipe, and lungs.
Dr. Katherine Shedlock, general pediatrician at Penn State Health, says she first started noticing the trend over the summer, when her own 10-year-old daughter was diagnosed with pneumonia and did not improve with the typical treatment for the illness.
Cases have continued to rise, especially as children have returned to school this fall.
Dr. Shedlock says mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria is fairly contagious, especially among household members and close contacts in classrooms.
"The challenge is the symptoms are very similar to viral respiratory infections such as your common cold so when children start having these symptoms of cough, sore throat, headache, fatigue, it can certainly look like a virus and it usually is a virus but some of our children are having more prolonged cough and prolonged fevers and we're often now seeing fevers for more than five days," explained Dr. Shedlock. "Sometimes when we listen around the six to ten day mark, we're hearing crackles and that's usually an indication that the mycoplasma illness has progressed to pneumonia."
Dr. Dooley explains if a child has walking pneumonia, the type of cough they have can change over the course of the illness. It is typically a very dry cough, and even a wheezing-type cough, early on, even in children who don't have asthma.
"As time progresses, you can also develop a wet or mucus-producing cough when it really starts to settle in the lungs," she said. "This is when we hear those crackles."
Doctors say there are some things you can do to limit your child's chances of catching mycoplasma pneumoniae:
- Cleaning surfaces frequently at home
- Having children cough into their arms, rather than directly onto their hand
- Washing hands frequently and before eating
- Avoiding being around other people when sick
