United States: Coughs may indicate a type of ‘walking pneumonia’ that has been on the rise in the US this year, and children with such sickness may require a different regimen of antibiotics, says the infectious disease specialists.
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According to Dr. Buddy Creech, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, “It’s very much been on our radar since early summer when we started to see a remarkable increase in the number of kids with pneumonia who seemed to have this particular type of pneumonia,” Yahoo News reported.
Creech stated that on the same day in August, four Nashville area pediatricians called to inquire why kids were coughing in the summertime. Such doctors needed advice, he says, because although amoxicillin – used to treat pneumonia – did not appear to be effective in these instances.
Pneumoniais caused by tiny Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria, and cases are rising this year, especially among young children going to school and preschool-age children; the US CDC issued a bulletin last week advising parents and doctors of the increase.
Mycoplasma pneumonia is the newest addition to a list of lung infections that doctors have on their list as they practice medicine this fall. The number of whooping cough cases – which also include a long cough – is already five times higher than this time last year, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is gradually increasing in some parts of the US.
Earlier, it has not been possible to identify Mycoplasma from the samples easily. It’s not a germ that prefers to develop in a Petri dish, which is normally used in germs culture tests or bacterial growth tests, but this process takes a lot of time.
However, Creech explains that detecting such bacteria has become easier and faster through improved diagnostic equipment. So it seems there is no shortage of germs that make kids cough this fall, which is why it’s important for doctors to use these new tests to rule out what ails them, he added.
According to him, “This is the exact time where we need to be using these diagnostic tests that can guide treatment,” he said.
The CDC says that although the Mycoplasma trend is something to be aware of, first-line antibiotics for children, such as amoxicillin and penicillin, do not eradicate this type of bacteria. The infection is often susceptible to other antibiotics, such as azithromycin, but it does not respond to gentamicin.