What is “walking” pneumonia?

What is “walking” pneumonia?

“Walking” pneumonia is a mild form of pneumonia (an infection of the lungs). This non-medical term has become a popular description because you may feel well enough to be walking around, carrying out your daily tasks and not even realize you have pneumonia.

Most of the time, walking pneumonia is caused by an atypical bacteria called Mycoplasma pneumoniae, which can live and grow in the nose, throat, windpipe (trachea) and lungs (your respiratory tract). It can be treated with antibiotics.

Scientists call walking pneumonia caused by mycoplasma “atypical” because of the unique features of the bacteria itself. Several factors that make it atypical include:

• Milder symptoms
• Natural resistance to medicines that would normally treat bacterial infections
• Often mistaken for a virus because they lack the typical cell structure of other bacteria