Pediatric Mycoplasma Pneumoniae Cases in Ganzhou Before and After COVID-19

Ganzhou, China data contains a retrospective analysis of 27,369 hospitalized pediatric community-acquired pneumonia patients from 2017 to 2024, identifying 3,334 Mycoplasma pneumoniae-positive cases. The study by Guihua Lai investigates changes in infection positivity rates, seasonality, age distribution, and severity across pre-pandemic, non-pharmaceutical intervention, and post-intervention phases.

Use Cases

• Analyze changes in MP positivity rate across pandemic phases using the 12.18% overall positivity and phase-specific rates like 21.17% in Phase III.
• Model shifts in seasonal patterns by comparing spring positivity rates, which increased from 4.06% in Phase I to 19.94% in Phase III.
• Investigate age-specific susceptibility changes, such as the rise in the 4-6 years group positivity to 29.79% in Phase III from 13.00% in Phase I.
• Assess clinical severity by examining the proportion of severe pneumonia in the 1-3 years group, which reached 14.55% in Phase II.
• Compare hospitalization outcomes using metrics like median hospitalization duration and rate of mechanical ventilation for severe pneumonia across phases.

Strengths

• Analysis covers 27,369 patient records over an 8-year period (2017-2024).
• Provides specific statistical comparisons (e.g., χ²=505.33, p<0.001) for observed epidemiological changes.
• Data is disaggregated by pandemic phase, season, and age group (e.g., 1-3, 4-6, 7-10 years).

Limitations

• Dataset is very small at 39.0 KB, suggesting it contains summary statistics rather than patient-level records.
• Geographic scope is limited to a single city (Ganzhou, China), limiting generalizability.
• Underlying patient-level data with individual column values is not provided.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Guihua Lai.

Collection Method

Retrospective analysis of hospitalized pediatric CAP patient records.

Time Range

2017 to 2024.

Freshness

Data covers up to 2024, with study last updated in April 2026.

Geography

Ganzhou, China.