NEW YORK: Cases of the mild form of pneumonia have been surging among young children in the Washington, DC region of the United States, reported Xinhua quoting the Washington Post on Friday which cited paediatricians and public health officials.
“Spread of the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae is fuelling the increase in ‘walking pneumonia,’ a term healthcare providers use to refer to an illness that is less severe than full-blown pneumonia, which may cause high fever and require patients to be hospitalised,” said the report.
Nationally, emergency department visits with Mycoplasma-related diagnoses increased among children in the six-month period ending in early October, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Although the infections historically affect school-age children, the CDC noted an increase of 1 per cent to 7 per cent in cases among 2-to-4-year-olds and a rise by 4 per cent to 7 per cent in illnesses of 5-to-17-year-olds. Diagnoses for those age groups peaked in August, data show. – BERNAMA-XINHUA
