Cases of walking pneumonia rising in Kingston, but it’s treatable

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Cases of walking pneumonia have been rising in many parts of the United States and Canada for months, and the Kingston area is not immune.  

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Local doctors are seeing an increase in cases of walking pneumonia, a mild form of pneumonia that usually doesn’t require hospitalization but often presents itself as a cough, fever, headache, and chest pain.  

“It’s really an archaic, probably poorly used term to describe patients who have pneumonia but are not sick enough to come into hospital and are therefore kind of walking around and doing their usual thing,” Dr. Gerald Evans, an infectious disease specialist at the Kingston Health Sciences Centre, said in an interview.  

He said the illness is caused by a bacteria called mycoplasma pneumoniae, and the current increase in Kingston and beyond is being attributed to that bacteria’s cyclical pattern. 

As with many infectious diseases, Dr. Evans said there’s usually a rise in cases on a cyclical basis, and cases of walking pneumonia usually increase every three to seven years before they fall off again. 

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He said local physicians are starting to see a rise in walking pneumonia cases, but it’s difficult to measure since it’s not a reportable disease. Public health does not track cases of pneumonia or walking pneumonia the way it does COVID-19, influenza, and RSV. All they have, Dr. Evans said, is anecdotal evidence.  

“We don’t really know the numbers,” he said.  

“Have I as an infectious disease doctor heard about cases of mycoplasma pneumoniae popping up in people I know and various patients that doctors have talked to me about? Absolutely.” 

Doctors throughout the country have also seen an increase in cases for months, including at Montreal Children’s Hospital, where infectious disease division director Dr. Earl Rubin said he had noticed more cases in toddlers, which is younger than the typical school-age and young adult demographic the bacterial infection usually impacts. 

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B.C. Children’s Hospital said that since August, it had recorded an increase in children with walking pneumonia in the emergency department. A couple of months earlier, in May and June, McMaster Children’s Hospital started seeing rates of walking pneumonia grow and peak in September after seeing no cases for the past couple years, said Dr. Jeffrey Pernica, an infectious disease specialist at the hospital. 

In the U.S., the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reported in October a rise in walking pneumonia, especially in young children, over the last six months, peaking in late August. 

While there is no formal laboratory-based surveillance for the pathogen, the Canadian Public Health Laboratory Network is on the lookout for unusual activity with mycoplasma, the bacteria that causes walking pneumonia, the Public Health Agency of Canada said. 

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Dr. Evans said in addition to the cyclical nature of the illness, the COVID-19 pandemic is also a contributing factor in the sudden rise in cases. For years, most people took measures to prevent the transmission of the bacteria, keeping cases low.  

The fact most people are “no longer being careful about the potential for transmission” is adding to the number of current cases.  

He said it’s important for people to realize, however, that mycoplasma pneumoniae has existed for “hundreds of years, thousands of years probably,” and the rising cases is simply the natural cycle playing out. 

“It’s nothing to panic about. It’s totally treatable,” he said.  

“Yes, we’re seeing a rise, but we’ve seen these rises occurring periodically over anywhere from a three- to seven-year period, and most people will get better without even being treated. But yes, if you have it, we do want to treat you because we do have antibiotics that will treat it.” 

(With files from The Canadian Press) 

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