Respiratory infections

Abstract

Respiratory infections, whether acute or chronic, are extremely frequent in both adults and children, representing an increased economic burden on healthcare systems, morbidity and mortality. These infections can be either community- or hospital-acquired. Both non-immunosuppressed and immunosuppressedpatients candevelop suchhealth issues, althoughprevalence is higher in the latter group. Intermsofmicrobialaetiology, thecausativepathogencanbeviral,bacterial, fungalorparasitic. In this European Respiratory Review (ERR) series, the authors review some key issues relating to the aforementionedtopics.