Mycoplasma pneumoniae are bacteria that infect the respiratory tract and can damage its lining — in the throat, the windpipe and the lungs. The infections are usually mild, and most people get better without medicine, but they can turn severe, and some people need antibiotics. Call a healthcare provider about trouble breathing or any symptoms that worry you.
How common, and how serious
- Most common: tracheobronchitis — a chest cold.
- Less common: pneumonia.
- In a U.S. study of people hospitalized with pneumonia, M. pneumoniae was a common bacterial cause — the most common in children, and the second most common in adults.
- After a surge in 2024, CDC's data suggested infections were falling in the United States, though still high in some regions. CDC tracks the latest trends.
Symptoms
Symptoms can take 1 to 4 weeks to appear after exposure and can last several weeks. Some infected people have none.
| Chest cold | Pneumonia |
|---|---|
| tiredness, fever, headache, sore throat, a cough that slowly gets worse | cough, tiredness, fever and chills, shortness of breath |
Children under 5 may not get chest-cold symptoms at all. Instead they may have diarrhea, sneezing, a sore throat, a stuffy or runny nose, vomiting, watery eyes or wheezing.
"Walking pneumonia"
People with M. pneumoniae pneumonia can seem better than you'd expect for someone with a lung infection, and with mild symptoms they may keep going about their day instead of staying home or in bed — hence the name "walking pneumonia."
Complications
Uncommon, but serious enough to need hospital care. M. pneumoniae can cause or worsen:
- asthma attacks or new asthma symptoms
- encephalitis (swelling of the brain)
- hemolytic anemia (too few red blood cells delivering oxygen)
- kidney problems
- serious pneumonia
- blistering skin disorders such as reactive infectious mucocutaneous eruption (RIME)
When to get care
- Right away for anyone having difficulty breathing.
- For persistent or worsening symptoms, such as wheezing — especially for people at higher risk of severe disease.
Spread and prevention
It spreads through coughs and sneezes, and some people are more likely to be infected than others. Handwashing and covering coughs and sneezes help stop it. More: causes and how it spreads.
Diagnosis and treatment
- No quick test. Providers usually examine the patient and look for signs, perhaps with a chest x-ray to check for pneumonia. Many don't test for M. pneumoniae at all, especially in mild or moderate illness; when they do, a nose or throat swab goes to a lab.
- Mild infections usually clear up on their own; a provider or pharmacist can suggest over-the-counter medicines to ease symptoms.
- Pneumonia caused by M. pneumoniae is routinely treated with antibiotics, and several kinds work. But some strains resist some of those antibiotics — one reason to use antibiotics carefully (CDC on antibiotic use).
CDC also has a fact sheet.
Sources
Based on "About Mycoplasma pneumoniae Infection," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain. A stock photograph is left out.
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.cdc.gov
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