As the respiratory virus season approaches, Montreal pediatric hospitals are seeing a significant jump in cases of atypical pneumonia, an illness caused by the bacteria, in their emergency rooms. Mycoplasma pneumoniae. Several children had to be hospitalized due to this infection.
This disease follows a cycle where its number of cases increases every 3 to 7 years, explains the Dr Jesse Papenburg, pediatrician and microbiologist-infectious disease specialist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC). “What we are experiencing is therefore not unusual, but it has been several years since we have seen so many cases in Quebec,” he emphasizes.
Most cases affect school-age children and adolescents, specifies the Dr Papenburg. “But it can affect people of any age. »
Atypical pneumonia usually begins with a cough sometimes accompanied by fever. The infected person may then cough for a few weeks, in addition to feeling very tired, explains the doctor.
More rarely, atypical pneumonia can cause respiratory distress, skin rashes, very severe conjunctivitis, mouth ulcers or even brain damage. “It’s uncommon, but there are so many cases of infections with Mycoplasma pneumoniae at the moment we are also seeing unusual manifestations. »
This year, more children with this disease must be hospitalized to receive oxygen, notes the Dre Caroline Quach-Thanh, pediatrician-microbiologist-infectious disease specialist at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center. “These are field observations”, nuance the Dre Quach-Thanh. Its establishment does not monitor the evolution of cases of atypical pneumonia on a weekly basis.
In Quebec, infection with the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae is not a notifiable disease. Thus, the Ministry of Health and Social Services explains in writing that it is not “systematically informed of all cases associated with this pathogen”.
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