Antibiotic prescriptions and laboratory-confirmed cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae during the epidemic in Sweden in 2011.

Swedish laboratories reported an increase of Mycoplasma pneumoniae during the autumn 2011. Data from the laboratory in Skövde, covering 12.9% of the Swedish population, indicate an approximate increase in the number of laboratory-confirmed cases in the whole country, from around 3,500 in 2009 to 11,100 in 2011. Antibiotics are recommended only for pneumonia, not bronchitis, but compared with the autumn 2009, 42,652 more prescriptions of doxycycline and macrolides were registered in the autumn 2011.