Expert tells PEOPLE how to manage ‘highly contagious’ form of pneumonia

• The US Centers for Disease Control announced an increase in pediatric cases of ‘walking pneumonia’

• A spike happens “every two years,” Dr. Matthew Isaac Harris, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at New York-based Northwell Health, told PEOPLE.

• Dr Harris says the infection is “very treatable” with antibiotics and advises parents to avoid over-the-counter cough medicines.

Cases of atypical pneumonia (also called “walking pneumonia“) – which is a lung infection caused by the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae – are on the rise in the United States, with cases in children increasing so sharply that the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued an alert on Friday October 18.

But what exactly is walking pneumonia?

“Walking pneumonia is a lay term for a type of pneumonia that, in medical terms, we call atypical pneumonia. It just means they (patients) are not following the normal course of fever, cough and acute worsening,” said Dr. Matthew Isaac Harris, pediatric emergency physician and medical director of Transport for Care intensive in New York. -based on Northwell Health, tells PEOPLE.

Related: Mom tries to “flush out” the infection by drinking massive amounts of water, she ends up in intensive care: “I was slowly drowning”

“They have a better clinical appearance than the average bear,” he explains, adding that these less severe symptoms can delay diagnosis.

“They have maybe a week to two weeks of worsening cough. Sometimes it’s a fever,” says Dr. Harris. “They don’t have those classic three to four days of high fever and productive cough that you might see in more classic pneumonia.”

But even if cases are increasing, “this is not a unique year,” adds the doctor. “We have these outbreaks of mycoplasma pneumonia every two years.”

As for why the virus is spreading among children, he explains: “They are constantly coughing in small classrooms, in preschool or in playgroups. Things that put children at higher risk are simply their exposure to other children who are constantly coughing nearby.

“This year the peak happens every two years,” he explained. “It’s very contagious.”

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The good news, Dr. Harris tells PEOPLE, is that it is “very, very treatable” with antibiotics — usually azithromycin, which, he explained, is “more colloquially known as Z -pack”.

“It’s once a day for five days, so it’s not the time where you’re going to have to fight with your child three times a day to try to absorb a large volume of antibiotics,” he said. told PEOPLE.

And no matter how quickly your child recovers, “it is extremely important to complete the course in its entirety.”

However, Dr. Harris also advises parents to avoid over-the-counter cough medicines.

“Children tolerate honey very well. Honey is a natural cough medicine. I encourage parents not to use cough medicines on children that are not approved by their pediatrician.

Related: Mom brings her daughter to the emergency room with pneumonia. Learns Toddler Had a Stroke and Needs Fingers Amputated (Exclusive)

Although the CDC has issued an alert, Dr. Harris says “we are in the vigilance phase.”

“Watch out for signs of respiratory distress, which again is a problem for young children under 2 years old. Older children will tell you that they don’t feel well. »

He advised parents to watch for symptoms, including “breathing faster, not drinking as much, maybe not peeing as much because they’re not drinking.”

“We don’t want parents to run to the pediatrician every time their child coughs,” the doctor says, before emphasizing that “it’s just this cough that slowly gets worse and mild fevers after a while. week to 10 days, which does not improve. , It’s definitely time to go see your pediatrician.”

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