Key Points
- About one-quarter of primary care consultations among children relate to respiratory complaints.
- There is no effective vaccination programme for respiratory syncytial virus, the most common cause of bronchiolitis and lower respiratory tract infections in the first year of life.
- Community-acquired pneumonia is not a serious threat to most children in western Europe but mortality rates are more than 10 times higher in some eastern European countries.
- There are clear differences in infant and childhood mortality from respiratory disease between western, central and eastern Europe.
- Vaccination has markedly decreased the rate of respiratory infections such as pertussis, measles, Haemophilus influenzae, and pneumococcus in all European countries.
See the entire Paediatric respiratory diseases Chapter