What’s Going Around: Pneumonia, COVID, strep

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – WellSpan Pediatric Medicine Physicians are seeing pneumonia, non-COVID upper respiratory illnesses and stomach bugs this week.

Pediatricians at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital are seeing a lot of cases of COVID, a lot of colds and some stomach bugs. They are also seeing some strep throat and viral upper respiratory infections.

UPMC Children’s Community Pediatrics reports a viral illness this week, with symptoms including cough, congestion and fever.

Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health Physicians Roseville Pediatrics reports an increase in walking pneumonia cases. Strep throat cases are still high and COVID cases continue to increase. They also saw the common cold and enterovirus.

Dr. Joan Thode offered the following advice about walking pneumonia:

“Walking pneumonia is the more commonly heard term to describe atypical pneumonia, which refers to an infectious inflammatory process dispersed throughout the lungs rather than being localized into a small single area of the lungs.

The term atypical pneumonia actually references the mycoplasma bacteria that cause the pneumonia, not that the pneumonia or the patient suffering it are atypical. What makes the bacteria not typical is its lack of a cell wall, making antibiotic choice very important.

Walking pneumonia is more common in the school-aged and teen pediatric populations than in young children and toddlers.

Walking pneumonia and the common cold can have overlapping symptoms of fever, headache, loss of appetite, and of course cough. The cough tends to be much worse with pneumonia than with a cold. The immune system of the lungs will attack the bacterial infection, which causes production of mucous as a defense. The cough with pneumonia will frequently sound wet as this increased mucous is being coughed up and cleared. Even after the bacteria has been killed by the immune system and antibiotics, the accumulated mucus in the lungs needs to be cleared, so the cough can sometimes persist for a week after the acute infection is gone.

For walking pneumonia, antibiotics are typically prescribed. The choice of medication and dose will depend on the individual child’s exam findings and weight.”

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