What you need to know about walking pneumonia

The United States has seen an increase in walking pneumonia cases this year. Walking pneumonia is a mild lung infection usually from a bacteria called mycoplasma pneumoniae.

“Walking pneumonia is a generic term that means patients are clinically more well that we might expect for someone having a lung infection,” said Beth Thielen, MD, PhD, a pediatric infectious disease physician with M Health Fairview Pediatrics and assistant professor with the University of Minnesota Medical School. “Usually if somebody has a bacterial lung infection, they may be quite unwell and staying home.”

Mycoplasma pneumoniae spreads through droplets in the air when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or breathes.

“Respiratory infections were down in the period of 2020 to 2022 when we were doing a lot of masking and isolating,” Thielen said. "Those measures worked against a variety of common respiratory illnesses, so we saw dips in different infections during that time. We've seen a rebound of infections since we came out of the pandemic. This summer we saw a particularly notable rise in the number of cases of mycoplasma.”

That led to more people than usual getting admitted to the hospital with difficulty breathing and fever. Symptoms might also include:

• Sore throat
• Headache
• Tiredness
• Fever and chills
• Slowly worsening cough

Younger children might also experience:

• Wheezing
• Diarrhea
• Vomiting
• Watering eyes

Get medical attention if you or a family member has difficulty breathing and chest pain or if your symptoms are persistent or worsening. If you test positive for pneumonia, your healthcare provider might prescribe antibiotics. However, mycoplasma pneumoniae is showing antibiotic resistance. This occurs when the germs adapt, so the antibiotic medication may no longer be effective. If that happens, it’s important to be under the care of a clinician, Thielen said.

Put your infection prevention skills to work

For many people, walking pneumonia will be mild enough that they won’t seek medical attention. But as with any respiratory illness, it’s important to keep your germs to yourself, even if you don’t have positive test results.

“If it feels like you have a respiratory infection, you probably do, in which case it's wise to assume that you can spread it to other people very similarly to COVID-19,” Thielen said.

In those cases, stay home if possible and wear a mask to prevent spread of droplets if you’re coughing or sneezing.