It’s called “walking pneumonia” and Dr. Earl Rubin said it’s becoming an issue with hospitals seeing more and more of it.
The division director of infectious disease at the Montreal Children’s Hospital (the Children’s) said that mycoplasma pneumoniae (walking pneumonia) is the most frequent cause of community-acquired pneumonia in school age children, adolescents and adults, but that doctors are now seeing it in younger preschool age children.
“We didn’t see that very commonly before, and we’re also seeing more complicated disease, because mycoplasma can affect multiple systems, and in addition, it can cause more severe pneumonia, and we’ve been seeing that as well,” said Rubin.
The American Centers for Disease Control said recently that mycoplasma pneumoniae cases have been increasing since the spring in children between two and four years old. The CDC is currently trying to raise awareness of the disease among health-care providers.
Rubin said that typical walking …