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Children who develop a cough that lasts for weeks may have a type of walking pneumonia, which is on the rise in the U.S. this year, and may need a specific course of antibiotics to treat it, infectious disease experts say.
“This has been on our radar ever since we started seeing a dramatic increase in the number of children with pneumonia at the beginning of the summer,” said pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Buddy Crick. Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Crick said on the same day in August, four Nashville-area pediatricians came to him to ask why so many children were coughing during the summer. These doctors wanted advice, because the antibiotic they take for pneumonia – amoxicillin – doesn't seem to work in these cases.
Pneumonia is caused by the microscopic Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria, and cases are on the rise this year, especially among preschool-age children, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. advertisement Warning to parents and doctors last week.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is the last entry on The list of lung infections that will keep doctors on their toes this fall is growing. Whooping cough, or pertussis, cases – also cause prolonged coughing Five times higher than last year, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is also on the rise. In parts of the US.
In the past, testing for Mycoplasma was difficult. It's not a germ that likes to grow in a petri dish, it's a standard, if slow, test for bacterial infection.
Now, Crick says, better diagnostic tests are making it easier to identify these bacteria quickly and reliably. With so many germs making children cough this fall, it's important that doctors use these new tests to make the right diagnosis, he said.
“This is the right time to use these diagnostic tests that can guide treatment,” he said.
It's important to be aware of Mycoplasma trends because first-line antibiotics for children, such as amoxicillin and penicillin, don't kill this type of bacteria, the CDC says. The infection is usually easily treated with other antibiotics, such as azithromycin.
According to the CDC, which monitors data from a network of hospitals and test results from commercial laboratories, the number of children 2 to 4 years old diagnosed with pneumonia and mycoplasma has increased by 1 percent. April 2024 to 7.2% in early October, up 700%. Diagnoses in older children have doubled over the same period, from 3.6% to 7.4%.
The CDC says Mycoplasma cases appear to have peaked in mid-August, but remain high. Crick said he expects them to remain high for another month or so, after which they should begin to fall.
On X-rays, Mycoplasma infections can give the lungs a cloudy or “white lung” appearance.
Last year, China, Denmark and France all reported iAn increase in this type of pneumonia on children.
Dr. Geoffrey Weinberg, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said the increase in cases could be due to at least three factors.
Rates of primary Mycoplasma infections are returning to pre-Covid-19 levels.
“It seems incredible now, but even more so because at the height of the Covid pandemic, everything slowed down,” Weinberg said. But the actual national rates are the same as before 2019.
The second reason is that most infections are cyclical, so some years are worse than others. Doctors see symptoms of Mycoplasma pneumonia every 3 to 7 years because people lose their immunity to the virus, Crick said.
“Sometimes you have a bad year, compounded by going unnoticed for a while, and now we're getting more,” Weinberg said. Having more cases than not, he said, could make Shul feel more acute.
A third reason is that doctors have advanced tests that can test for many types of viruses and bacteria at the same time – multiplex tests, so this infection may be being picked up multiple times.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a bacteria that travels in respiratory droplets. People get infected when they cough and sneeze from another person, the CDC says. Because of this, this type of pneumonia is easily spread in crowded places like schools, college residence halls, and nursing homes.
These bacteria are very difficult because they spend some time – one to four weeks in the body – before they make a person sick. When the symptoms begin, a person often has no memory of what they were exposed to.
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Mycoplasma infections generally start pretty well, with headaches, sore throats, low-grade fevers, and chills. People often feel dizzy but can still walk around, hence the term “walking pneumonia.”
Cough is usually a dry cough, without sputum. It starts slowly and gradually increases over a period of two to three weeks, becoming almost constant.
Anyone with a Mycoplasma infection does not need treatment. According to Weinberg, 75% of children and adults will pass without any treatment.
Sometimes, however, the infection worsens pre-existing conditions such as asthma and makes people seriously ill.
Occasionally, these germs can travel outside the lungs. They can infect the lining of the brain and spinal cord in the central nervous system. The bacteria It can also infect the optic nerve, as well as those that control the legs and bladder. These patients may never have a cough.