Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that as doctors across the country grapple with a surge in Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections, the national rate of emergency department visits for infants infected with Mycoplasma pneumoniae is lower than the rate of visits for school-age children. It is shown that the trend is trending faster than that of the previous year. “Walking pneumonia” case.
The new numbers come from the CDC’s National Syndrome Surveillance Program, which collects data on pneumonia-related emergency department visits from U.S. hospitals.
meanwhile case While the proportion of school-aged children was higher than other age groups, the proportion of infants has jumped in recent weeks and is now on par with older children. In the week ending Nov. 2, 7.6% of emergency department pneumonia cases in infants ages 0 to 1 and children ages 5 to 17 were diagnosed with mycoplasma pneumonia, according to the latest data from the CDC.
“The number of these diagnoses has decreased slightly since August, but remained high through early November,” CDC spokeswoman Jasmine Reed said in a statement Tuesday. “The numbers increased steadily throughout the fall and did not decline thereafter.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, infections have almost disappeared. CDC officials have said this year’s wave of infections could herald a repeat of waves of mycoplasma pneumonia cases that occurred before the pandemic.
But this year’s trend is also unusual, as cases were previously thought to be more common only in school-age children and less so in younger children.
“We’re now confirming that the symptoms are presenting as a typical respiratory infection, but we’re making sure that there’s nothing unusual going on with the bacteria themselves or the way they’re manifesting, and we’re looking for treatments and… “We want to see something that could guide treatment. Let’s prevent it,” Dr. Adam Cohen, chief of the CDC’s division of pneumonia, told Medscape News earlier this month.
Reed said that while cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae are increasing in every region of the United States, CDC data shows at least last month — When several states first started expressing concerns about the surge — three areas in particular were seeing the highest levels of bacteria in their ERs.
One is in the South, spanning Texas and neighboring states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Second is the Midwest, which includes Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. The third is in the Northeast and includes New York and New Jersey.
“Maybe this is one of the things we didn’t realize was that COVID-19 was pretty suppressed,” said Dr. Jennifer Nayak, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Golisano Children’s Hospital in New York. “And now it may be happening again.” “This is definitely a really bad year for mycoplasma.”
Nayak said about a quarter of the tests done in the hospital’s microbiology lab came back positive for the bacteria, which she said was unusually high.
The hospital is also seeing an increase in patients who require hospitalization due to the bacteria and struggle with a variety of symptoms, from lung problems to more complex neurological complications, although it remains a small proportion of total cases. It’s staying.
“We’ve definitely seen children with more severe illness,” Nayak said. “It’s probably not because the bacteria have changed, it’s just that the overall infection rate is higher.”
She cautioned that while the recent increase is unusual, there is not much data tracking the disease and it is difficult to compare it to previous waves of the bacteria.
“Tracking mycoplasma infections is suboptimal,” Nayak said. “This is not something that can be reported to health authorities. It wasn’t closely tracked until relatively recently.”
A spokesperson for the New York State Department of Health said the state is also tracking a “significant increase” in Mycoplasma pneumoniae cases compared to previous years, based on data from the state’s emergency rooms.
Although not all pneumonia cases require antibiotics, testing can provide answers for children and their families battling persistent or severe pneumonia and help determine how to treat the infection. could be important, Nayak said.
“If you are giving your child amoxicillin because they may have an ear infection or because you think you are treating another community-acquired pneumonia, those antibiotics are not effective against mycoplasma. ” said Nayak.
