Author(s):
Pediatric community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is still one of the most prevalent and dangerous illnesses in children and it continue to cause significant morbidity. The prevalence of invasive diseases brought on by Streptococcus pneumoniae has significantly decreased as a result of routine childhood vaccination. Molecular diagnostics have made it clearer how crucial respiratory viruses are in paediatric CAP, but bacterial diagnostics are still not up to par. In-depth research is currently being done on biomarkers and the molecular host responses to infection, which may help us better, understand the causes of pneumonia and its course. A viral and bacterial infection of the lower airways is known as pneumonia. Clinical pneumonia symptoms and signs picked up outside of a hospital setting are known as "community-acquired pneumonia" (CAP). It is one of the most prevalent severe illnesses in children, and in 2015, it was responsible for over 900,000 fatalities in children under the age of five. Although the death rate from CAP is substantially lower in high-income nations than it is in the developing world, CAP nevertheless accounts for a sizable fraction of visits to the doctor and hospital stays. This review focuses on paediatric CAP in the United States and other developed countries, highlighting the evolving epidemiology of CAP, the difficulties in diagnosing and treating it, and potential research areas.
