Pneumonia outbreaks due to re-emergence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

On Nov 22, 2023, WHO released a statement regarding reported clusters of pneumonia in children in northern China.1 Concurrently, the results of our global prospective surveillance study of Mycoplasma pneumoniae (ESGMAC MAPS study) were published, revealing the re-emergence of M pneumoniae in Europe and Asia; however, our study did not include data from China.2 These observations indicated that the increase in the incidence of pneumonia in China could be due to the increased circulation of known pathogens such as M pneumoniae, which causes childhood pneumonia worldwide.