A study in the Netherlands reports a significant rise in Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections since October 2023, with a notable decrease in the median age of patients compared to the last epidemic.
Hospitalisations due to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections largely decreased
after social distancing measures were introduced to control the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lifting these measures resulted in out-of-season RSV activity, sometimes exceeding
the incidence of hospitalisations observed in regular seasons.1–3 Declining immunity
due to reduced exposure to the virus may contribute to this altered epidemiology.1,4,5
Bardsley and colleagues1 showed that the combination of laboratory, clinical, and
syndromic data capture the impact of RSV activity, yet did not provide insight into
the proposed decline in immunity.