Health Secretary Teodoro "Ted" Herbosa on Tuesday said there is no outbreak of mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes "atypical pneumonia" or "walking pneumonia" in the country.

During the Commission on Appointments' deliberation on his ad interim appointment as secretary of the Department of Health, Senator Christopher "Bong" Go sought Herbosa's recommendation to mitigate the spread of respiratory illness in the country.

"It is true, not only in China but now other countries in Europe have reported an increase in respiratory illness in children. It was not attributed to a new virus," Herbosa responded.

"In the Philippines, there is no outbreak yet, according to our Epidemiology Bureau. Although there were many because we are now in a season of respiratory illness," he added.

Last week, Health Undersecretary Enrique Tayag said the department is currently waiting for the report of the Philippine General Hospital to determine whether the pathogen called mycoplasma pneumoniae was the reason for the influx of pneumonia cases in the hospital.

"We are waiting for their report because the testing for mycoplasma pneumoniae is not part of the routine," Tayag said.

The recent spike in the number of cases of respiratory illness in China was attributed to mycoplasma pneumoniae, which causes "atypical pneumonia" or "walking pneumonia."

The term "walking pneumonia" was coined due to the respiratory disease's nature to be more transmissible.

"It is [a] 'walking [pneumonia] because those who contracted the disease won't notice that they are already carrying it because they can still go to work or school," he explained.

Data from the Health department showed that from January to October 2023, a total of 158,762 pneumonia cases were reported in the Philippines.

The number of pneumonia cases is 45.68 percent higher than the 108,982 cases reported in the same period last year.

COVID too

In a separate interview, Tayag said the Health department reported a slow increase in the number of COVID cases.

"There are regions that saw a slight increase in the number of cases," he said.

He, however, stressed that the hospitalization rate in the regions where there was an increase in cases is still manageable.

"We checked the hospitals in the said regions, it is manageable and there was no overcrowding, especially in their ICU," he said.

Based on the weekly bulletin released by the Health Department on Monday, there were a total of 1,340 new COVID cases from 28 November to 4 December.

The fresh infections were 10 percent higher than the 1,218 cases monitored from the previous week.

Meanwhile, the average daily cases for the recent week was 191, which is 10 percent higher than the 174 average daily case rate in the previous week.