Photo : YONHAP News
More than 20-thousand people have been hospitalized due to respiratory infections from the Mycoplasma pneumoniae bacteria so far this year.
According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency on Tuesday, 20-thousand-69 Mycoplasma pneumoniae patients have been hospitalized due to the disease as of October 12, almost ten times more than in the same period last year.
The number of hospitalizations from the infection was four-thousand-373 in the whole of last year, and just one-thousand-591 in 2022.
The increase is particularly notable among children.
Of the one-thousand-one patients hospitalized between October 6 and 12, more than half were under age 13.
Three-hundred-and-41 were children aged seven to 12, while 274 were between one and six.
Thirty-seven were adults aged 65 or older.
While early symptoms are similar to those of the common cold, patients usually experience wheezing, coughing and fever as the disease progresses.
Early treatment is necessary, as up to 15 percent of patients develop severe pneumonia.