You may have recently heard of a disease nicknamed “white lung,” a type of pneumonia that has caused outbreaks in children this year in the United States and is reportedly contributing to the 'overwhelming' of China's medical system.
But it's not time for parents to panic. According to a report in The Independent, mycoplasma pneumonia is also known as white lung syndrome. It is a common mild bacterial infection that impacts the respiratory system, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Sometimes these bacteria can cause more serious lung infections that require care in a hospital,” the CDC added.
Word of the illness spreading among kids in China could be triggering, said Dr. Steve Morse, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University, but there's nothing unusual about rising cases of certain types of pneumonia during the winter.
“Everyone’s a little bit on edge because of the pandemic we’ve just had,” Morse told Fortune. “I think there’s a lesson there, that we may be a little more aware of these things—including things that may not actually be unusual—after the pandemic.”
Ed Milder, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Rady Children’s and the University of California, San Diego, told Health that the term “white lung” refers to whitening seen on chest X-rays that are often seen when someone has fluid in their lungs. This can happen to patients with pneumonia, but the term is misleading, said the outlet.
“It doesn’t actually tell you about how a child is functioning or how sick they are. It’s very nonspecific, and not accurately descriptive,” said Ian Michelow, professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut and head of the pediatric infectious diseases division at Connecticut Children’s, according to Health.
Last month, the World Health Organization said it was monitoring data from Chinese surveillance systems since mid-October that showed an increase in respiratory illness in children in northern China. Officials from China said the spike in infections is likely tied to the end of COVID-19 restrictions and that several illnesses were contributing to the increase, including Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
While some GOP lawmakers called for a Chinese travel ban due to the outbreak in China, the WHO recommended against travel restrictions. Instead, the public health organization recommended mitigation methods such as increased handwashing and wearing masks when sick.
In November, the Warren County Health District in Ohio announced that there was a spike in pneumonia cases there.
“The Warren County Health District wants to reiterate, as stated in a previous media release, the increase in reported pneumonia cases is not suspected of being a new/novel respiratory virus but rather a large uptick in the number of typical pediatric pneumonia cases,” said a news release. “There has been zero evidence of this outbreak being connected to other outbreaks, either statewide, nationally or internationally.”
It said that there had been 145 reported cases of pneumonia in children age 3 to 14 and no reported deaths.
Dr. Céline Gounder, a CBS News medical contributor and infectious disease specialist, also said the outbreaks in the U.S. and China are similar but not connected, per CBS News. Doctors in Massachusetts have also reported an a “modest increase” in child respiratory cases recently, said the outlet.
A notice from the CDC said that it is now monitoring reports of increased respiratory illness around the world.
“Diagnosis of pneumonia in children, along with other respiratory illnesses, increases every year in the fall and winter months,” the CDC explained. It also said “the weekly percent of emergency department visits with diagnosed pneumonia is largely consistent with previous years for children aged 0 to 4 years, with slight increases above typical levels for children aged 5 to 17 years, but still consistent with pre-pandemic years.”
Like the WHO, the CDC recommends proper hygiene such as handwashing and masking when sick to prevent the spread of respiratory infections. According to CBS News, doctors say most cases of bacterial pneumonia can be treated with antibiotics and typically don’t require hospitalization.