Micoplasma infections rife in DK

There is an epidemic of mycoplasma infections – also known as cold pneumonia in Denmark, according to the State Serum Institute (SSI) in a press release Wednesday. The announcement comes after an increasing number of Danes have tested positive for the respiratory infection Mycosplasma pneumoniae in recent weeks. The number is now so high that it is being categorised as an epidemic. According to senior researcher at SSI Hanne-Dorthe Emborg, there are “significantly more cases than usual”. The contagion, according to her, is throughout the country.
     “Mycoplasma infections come in waves, where the disease affects those groups in the population that have not yet built up immunity. Therefore, it is also typically a disease that is seen among schoolchildren aged 6-12 years,” she says in the press release. Over the past four years, the number of cases has been extremely low, and according to the senior researcher, it is also higher, as children of the age typically affected have not been exposed to it before.”
     The disease typically causes symptoms similar to those of a flu – headache, fatigue, sore throat and prolonged and dry cough, especially at night. Many also get a fever, but it is rarely as high as you would experience with a “classic pneumonia”, the press release says. Ordinary penicillin does not work against cold pneumonia. /ritzau/