United States: “Walking pneumonia” is actually spreading quickly across the U.S. and this is mainly among young children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that between March and October 2023 and also the cases increased or spiked from 1% to 7.2% in children ages 2 to 4, and from 3.6% to 7.4% in children ages 5 to 17. This infection is highly contagious.
The Fox News Digital interviewed Dr. Marc Siegel, the Fox News senior medical analyst, about what people should know about this condition on camera.
Another name for it is “atypical pneumonia”, walking pneumonia is described as “a mild lung infection” according to Cleveland Clinic. Often their symptoms resemble a bad cold or flu.
Commonly by bacteria, viruses, or mold, it leads to an inflammation of the bronchial tree and build-up of fluid in the lungs.
“Walking pneumonia is less than a full lobar pneumonia, literally a whiting out of an entire region of the lungs due to bacteria or a virus,” Siegel said to Fox News Digital.
” Walking pneumonia typically means that the attacked pathogen is not restricted to a certain part of the lungs but is instead disseminated randomly and in patches.”
Symptoms of the infection
Atypical pneumonia may manifest symptoms such as the following, as stated in Cleveland Clinic.
- Sore throat
- Extreme fatigue
- Chest pain or discomfort
- Low-grade fever
- Mild chills
- Coughing (generally the symptom endures the longest
- Sneezing
‘However, in walking pneumonia it might be a white mucus …or ‘there might not be a cough at all with the walker pneumonia. It also does not result in the high fever noted in full-blown cases of pneumonia, he observed.
The name points to the fact that like many other forms of pneumonia, with this particular kind, you could actually still walk around and do everything else you normally do without any problem.
“There’s not a bacterial pneumonia hanging out waiting to cause a high blood cell count or a high fever and chest pain,” he said.
Still, the doctor said, even if it may appear to be less severe, this kind of infection could still necessitate going to the hospital.
Siegel emphasizes that the type of cough is a primary discriminant between traditional and walking pneumonia.
‘If you have a good old fashion bacterial pneumonia, you are going to cough green, brown or dark yellow’, he said.