Long lasting and persistent cough? Pneumonia that is resistant to classic antibiotics? You may be infected Mycoplasma pneumoniae, bacteria on the rise in Belgium. This mycoplasma can cause what is sometimes called “white lung syndrome,” due to medical imaging returning a severely damaged lung.
Dr. Audrey Bonnellance, a general practitioner in Wolloy-Saint-Pierre in the Brussels region, has been seeing these patients in increasing numbers since mid-November: “We have an increase in cases of respiratory infections of all types, especially pneumonia. It reminds us a little bit of what we went through in 2019-2020, which was pneumonia that we didn’t understand: we think, at first, that this is classic pneumococcal pneumonia, which we treat with a classic antibiotic, often penicillin, and then after 48 or 72 hours we see Patient again and see that he is not improving“.
So we have to think of something else. And this other thing, in recent weeks, is often called ADMycoplasma pneumoniae.
Dr. Bonelance describes the symptoms caused by this bacteria:There are patients with Mycoplasma pneumoniae who cough for a very long time. Then there’s a whole series, since mid-November – and this is less frequent – which is actually causing a major outbreak of pneumonia, which lacks oxygen and doesn’t feel well. We haven’t seen that for a while, at least, on my part. These people need help with an antibiotic and you must carefully choose the appropriate antibiotic.“.
