Lower Respiratory Tract Infections in outpatients: bacterial causes or do viruses also matter?

Acute cough is one of the most common reasons for consulting in primary care thus driving considerable antibiotic use and health-care costs. Currently, identification of microbial etiology in patients who present with community-acquired lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) in the primary care setting is limited by sampling challenges, insufficient use of diagnostics, and empirical antibiotic prescribing. Consequently, little is known about the etiology of LRTI in everyday primary care. Improved knowledge of causative pathogens could help to guide antibiotic prescribing decisions and thus help contain unnecessary antibiotic use and mitigate further contributions to emergent antimicrobial resistance. Furthermore, such information could support public health policy on prevention of respiratory illness, including vaccination. Use of molecular assays for detection of both viral and bacterial respiratory infections is increasing. In this webinar, we will describe the role of viral and bacterial etiology in patients presenting in the primary care setting with LRTI and in those with community-acquired pneumonia.

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