NHS England » RightCare community-acquired pneumonia scenario

Consult a doctor or other health care professional for diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions. In the event of an emergency, please call 999 for immediate assistance. It may take a little longer for your chest infection to clear as changes to your immune system occur during pregnancy. This largely depends on the type of chest infection that you have.

• It can affect people of all ages, but mostly happens in children under the age of 5.
• You may get some of them, but it is very unlikely that you will have all of them.
• Excessive and prolonged alcohol misuse can weaken your lungs’ natural defences against infections and make you more vulnerable to chest infections.
• It is a temporary inflammation of the airways that manifests as a sore throat, runny nose or sinus infection.

Most children can be cared for at home as you would the common cold. If your child’s chest infection is accompanied by a more severe cough or fever, you should keep them home until their symptoms start to improve. Hospital treatment may involve two different antibiotics at the same time.

Dr Maheinthan Yogeswaran

For the 8 studies using a procalcitonin cut-off of 0.5 µg/L, the pooled sensitivity and specificity estimates were 55%  (95% CI, 37-71%) and 76% (95% CI, 62–86%), respectively. The review found that the sensitivity and specificity were both too low and variable for the results to be confidently used in the decision-making. Antibiotics have no effect on viruses, and prescribing them when they’re unnecessary can, over time, make bacteria more resistant to antibiotic treatment.

If you are otherwise healthy then this therapy can be administered at home. If the symptoms are more serious then you may be required to be admitted to hospital. Specific strategies can be taken to reduce the risk of acquiring pneumonia in the community. A diagnosis of pneumonia is made and Jim is admitted to the acute medical unit and then a general medical ward where he is treated with intravenous broad spectrum for seven days.

What are the potential side effects?

Recurrent pneumonia is defined as two (or usually more) episodes of pneumonia in a lifetime, although the term is often reserved for repeated episodes of pneumonia within 2 years. Each episode will have been at least 1 month apart with an X-ray having visibly confirmed the infection had gone after the previous episode. It can be difficult distinguishing between ‘persistent’ and ‘recurrent’ pneumonia if there is a lack of serial X-rays.

This does not mean that it is unsafe for children and young people to be prescribed such a medicine ‘off-licence/off-label’. However, if you are concerned about any conflicts of information, anabolic steroids injectable for sale please discuss with your doctor, nurse or pharmacist. A meta-analysis included 12 studies of 2408 adult patients with documented bacterial versus non-bacterial aetiology of CAP.

You should see your doctor again if your symptoms do not begin to improve within 3 days of starting antibiotics, if they get worse or are slow to disappear. Some people may need an X-ray 6 weeks after they started their course of antibiotics to check that the infection has completely gone. The typical antibiotic prescribed for a chest infection is amoxicillin (a type of penicillin). If you are allergic to amoxicillin, alternatives can be used like clarithromycin or doxycycline.

This is a severe reaction to an infection which can move quickly through the whole body, cause damage to your organs and can potentially be fatal. Chest infections can sometimes be difficult to prevent, but there are some things you can do to reduce the chances of your baby catching a chest infection. One way is to make sure your baby is up to date with all of their routine immunisations.

If you have any questions about this scenario or other RightCare products, please contact us at Please visit NICE for further information on COVID management with pneumonia. For further information about this treatment go to the electronic Medicines Compendium (eMC) website. Steroids can increase the number of white blood cells in your blood.

Most cases of acute bronchitis can be easily treated at home with rest, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and plenty of fluids. It’s 1 of a number of lung conditions, including emphysema, that are collectively known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The most important guidance is to maintain good hygiene and follow the advice of your doctor or clinical specialist, and to let them know if your condition worsens or does not get better.

Third sector and national guidelines

Lower respiratory tract infections have symptoms such as fever, fatigue, shortness of breath and sometimes chest pain. Antibiotics do not work on viral infections (like most cases of acute bronchitis) but may be prescribed for bacterial infections (like pneumonia). Mild cases of pneumonia can be treated with oral antibiotic tablets taken at home. More serious cases require admission to hospital for antibiotics (sometimes given intravenously), oxygen, and infusion of fluids.