D.C. Area Seeing Dramatic Spike In Walking Pneumonia Cases: Reports

Health & Fitness

D.C. Area Seeing Dramatic Spike In Walking Pneumonia Cases: Reports Healthcare centers across D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia recorded a more than 300% increase in cases since this time last year.

WASHINGTON, DC — Healthcare facilities in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia are seeing a dramatic spike in cases of "walking pneumonia," an illness known for being less severe than regular pneumonia, according to multiple reports.

In October, MedStar Health — a healthcare organization that operates 10 hospitals and 33 urgent care centers across the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area — diagnosed 1,789 cases of walking pneumonia across the region, WUSA9 reported .

The number of cases marks a 358 percent increase, up from just 391 cases reported in October 2023.

"The biggest age group that we're seeing that increase in is actually in the kiddos. From 10 to 17 is the highest increase, and we're seeing a pretty significant jump in those aged 0 to 9 as well," Amanda Joy, associate medical director for MedStar Health Urgent Care, told WTOP .

What Is Walking Pneumonia?

Walking pneumonia is a colloquial term to describe atypical pneumonia, or mild lung infections carrying symptoms similar to a chest cold, including a sore throat, sneezing, coughing, headache, mild chills and low-grade fever.

People who have walking pneumonia generally feel well enough to go about their lives. Unlike "regular" pneumonia, which is caused by various microorganisms, usually bacteria and viruses, walking pneumonia is caused by the difficult-to-detect bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

People of any age can develop walking pneumonia infections, but they're most common among children ages 5-17 and young adults. Younger children may have different symptoms , including diarrhea, wheezing or vomiting.

An estimated 2 million infections are confirmed every year in the United States; however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the true number of people affected is unknown since there is no national reporting or dedicated surveillance system for tracking.

First-line antibiotics for children, including amoxicillin and penicillin, don't work on this type of pneumonia. Instead, the CDC recommends macrolides, such as azithromycin, clarithromycin and erythromycin. Patients who don't improve may need second-line treatments, such as fluoroquinolones or tetracyclines.

Cases are likely increasing now because fewer people are wearing masks, washing their hands or sneezing into their elbows, practices that were more common during the COVID-19 pandemic, Joy told WTOP.

"We didn't have (walking pneumonia) throughout that time period when COVID was going on, because we were masking. So our resistance is down and we're able to contract it easier," Joy said.

Although Mycoplasma infection rates are now more in line with pre-pandemic levels, they have not exceeded them.

"It seems very dramatic now, but it's more because during the peak of the Covid pandemic, just about everything else went down," Dr. Geoffrey Weinberg, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, told CNN, "But the actual countrywide rates are fairly similar to what it was before 2019 ."