Local doctors seeing rise in child pneumonia

CLEVELAND (WJW) — Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic are reporting an increase in the number of school age children suffering from pneumonia.

“The main symptoms we’re seeing are fevers, which have been lasting seven to 10 days, a lot of cough, shortness of breath, chest pain — those are the usual signs and symptoms of pneumonia in children,” said Dr. Camille Sabella, who is director of the Clinic’s Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases.

Researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also reporting a nationwide spike in cases of children suffering from so-called “walking pneumonia.”

“It’s caused by a mycoplasma type of bacteria. Usually, we call it walking pneumonia because it’s not usually that severe and the kids are out there, carrying out their daily life without a whole lot of distress, but we have been seeing a little more severe cases recently,” said Sabella.

The exact reason for the surge is not totally clear, but Sabella pointed out that the increase coincides with children being back in school.

“There are many more viruses and bacteria spread amongst them much more easily and we are coming out of the pandemic where some of these viruses and bacteria hadn’t been seen by the children in quite a while and this may be their first re-exposure to some of these,” he said.

Doctors said the good news is that most of the young patients with pneumonia are responding well to treatment. In some cases, that includes antibiotics, but in other, more severe cases, they require hospitalization.

The message from doctors to parents, if their child becomes ill, is to be vigilant but not to panic.

“The most important thing is to make sure that they get seen, they get evaluated by their primary care physician and then followed up closely to be sure that they completely recover,” said Sabella.

Doctors also recommend that parents take a common-sense approach to limit the spread of the illness.

“Most causes of pneumonia can be contagious, especially the viruses, and we usually recommend that anybody having acute symptoms, especially fever and a productive cough, should probably stay home until they are better,” said Sabella.