Montreal Children’s Hospital

More kids coming down with walking pneumonia

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / August 4, 2025 / Dan Laxer, Dr. Earl Rubin, Montreal Children’s Hospital, pneumonia

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

There has been an uptick in the number of children coming down with walking pneumonia, not just in Montreal, but across North America. But doctors say that parents needn’t worry.

Dr. Earl Rubin, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, says there have been “a lot more” cases since the last spring / early summer. But specific numbers are not available. As of yet walking pneumonia is not tracked the way that other illnesses are, so it is a difficult thing to monitor. So the rise in cases, which is corroborated all across Canada, and in the U.S., is anecdotal, but significant.

Walking pneumonia is a milder form of the lung infection, brought on by the bacteria mycoplasma pneumoniae, the number 1 cause of pneumonia in school-aged kids, adolescents, and young adults. And although it is quite contagious, it is less of a cause for concern than full-blown pneumonia. “it’s called ‘walking pneumonia’,” Rubin explained, “because you’re not wiped out and hospitalized and really sick. You’re still functional.”

Rubin and others have said that it is plausible that the surge in the number of cases may be due to the Covid-19 pandemic; masking, distancing, and isolating led to fewer instances of cold, flu, or anything from one another, leading to a lower immunity. “There’s no science or proof of that,” says Rubin, “but that’s the working hypothesis for almost anything post-pandemic.”

The disease has been affecting a higher number of kids, of late, and younger kids at that, some as young as two to four years old. Rubin has been a summer camp doctor for more than 30 years. He says that all the summer camps had outbreaks this past summer.

Since walking pneumonia doesn’t lead to an immune response, it is possible for those who have had it to catch it again. And it is very infectious, Rubin says. “If it gets introduced into a household, about one third of the people in the household will get it.” And it is difficult, because of the incubation period, to know where you caught it.

Diagnosis of walking pneumonia requires clinicians to be aware that the illness is out there to know to look for it, and to know what type of antibiotic to prescribe. Symptoms include low energy, cough, low-grade fever, and it comes on gradually. There may be some wheezing, and some heaviness in the chest.

Only about 25% of kids who are infected with the bacteria will actually develop pneumonia (inflammation of the lung tissue), as opposed to a simple upper respiratory condition, which generally gets better without treatment. Those who do present symptoms can see their physician (if they have one) and don’t need to go to the ER.

As communicable as it is, a child with walking pneumonia is usually not contagious after a five-day course of antibiotics, says Rubin. But that doesn’t mean you should send them to school if they’re not feeling up to it. n

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Mother of injured teen wants traffic measures improved in Montreal West

Local Journalism Initiative / The Suburban / December 24, 2024 / Dan Laxer, Montreal Children’s Hospital, Samara Zavalkoff

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

This could have been a “sentinel event,” potentially life-threatening or life-altering. As an intensive-care unit physician at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, Samara Zavalkoff knows all too well what that means, and is grateful that her son escaped with scrapes and bruises after being hit by a car at the intersection of Westminster and Ainslie in Montreal West.

Zavalkoff’s son Charlie, 14, is a student at Royal West Academy. He takes the train from NDG to Montreal West station, and then walks to school from there. He and two friends crossed at the south-east corner where, as the school always tells the students, the crosswalk is more clearly marked. Northbound traffic stopped to let Charlie and his friends cross. But then Charlie noticed just a second too late that a car traveling north was about to hit him.

He was hit on his left side, and knocked down onto the road on his right side. Police and first responders were called to the scene, and Charlie was transported to hospital.

“This was not an accident,” Zavalkoff said. “This was a completely preventable event.”

Morning rush hour traffic on Westminster through Montreal West is worse than it’s been in a long time due to several factors, including road closures on both Sherbrooke and Broughton, and the ongoing construction of the Easton apartment complex at St. Jacques. Zavalkoff says that might be the saving grace that prevented more serious injury to her son.

At the same time, however, the traffic may be at the heart of the kind of driver frustration that would lead to an incident.

Zavalkoff spoke to the Royal West Academy administration and governing board, and to town councillor Lauren Small-Pennefather, who is responsible for public security in Montreal West. She also filed a complaint with SPVM station 9.

The police department oversees the crossing guard program. Whether a school gets a crossing guard depends on a number of factors, including the flow of traffic through a crossing, The speed of traffic, the width of the street, and the age and number of school children. High schools, the SPVM says, are not eligible for the program.

Word of the incident reached Liberal MNA Désirée McGraw. McGraw told Zavalkoff that she spoke with the Transport Minister about the issue, and indicated that action would be taken to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future, although Zavalkoff wonders why a problem with an ostensibly simple solution needs to go up that high.

This was not a case of a distracted teen wearing earbuds staring at his phone, says Zavalkoff. Charlie diligently crossed at the crosswalk, with his phone in his pocket on the side where he got hit. His phone did not fare as well as he did.

Town Mayor Beny Masella is travelling and was not available for comment. But Small-Pennefather does want to convene a meeting with the mayor and his team, the school’s governing board, and the police to hash out a solution. “I think we have enough information as intelligent people,” says Zavalkoff, “that we can figure out what to do.”

The kids don’t need another lecture or assembly on safety, said Zavalkoff. “This is about us structurally changing the intersection so that it’s safe.” n

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