Chattanooga doctor seeing spike in child cases of walking pneumonia cases

Common colds and other illnesses are on the rise since colder temperatures have made their way to the Tennessee Valley.

Doctors are still seeing patients with the typical respiratory illnesses like RSV, flu, and Covid but they are starting to see atypical pneumonia.

Atypical pneumonia is also known as walking pneumonia.

Dr. Matthew Hitchcock is seeing the illness in all ages but mainly in elementary age kids.

He breaks downs the symptoms.

“For the most part, it's cough and fever are probably the two biggest symptoms that people are presented with. They can have the runny nose, the congestion and all of that with it but the cough and fever are really the many presenting symptoms,” Dr. Hitchcock said.

Dr. Hitchcock said some kids' symptoms are worse than others.

“They can present with I'm running out of gas. I don't have energy. I'm short of breath. They can definitely show up with those symptoms as well and we have had that in kids and I have had to admit about one a week, a kid with respiratory distress,” Dr. Hitchcock said.

He said a spike in all illnesses happened after Thanksgiving once kids went back to school.

“If you have a cough and you are not feeling well you could wear a mask or cough in your sleeve and not cough on people. The biggest thing is washing your hands, make sure you are washing your hands a lot or using hand sanitizers just to try to help minimize the spread,” Dr. Hitchcock said.

Dr. Hitchcock wants to remind people that vaccines are available and it is never too late to get that extra layer of protection.

“In pregnant woman and infants, the RSV vaccine showed 89 percent affective at keepings kids out of the hospital. Usually, about once a week I have to admit a kid with a virus called bronchiolitis to the hospital and the RSV vaccine for either the pregnant mom from getting it or the infant from getting has just done huge work in keeping kids out of the hospital,” Dr. Hitchcock said.