- Infection is the most common cause of pneumonia, infecting agents can be bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites.
- Pneumococcal or bacterial pneumonia kills more people each year in the United States than all other vaccine-preventable diseases combined.
- Chemical burns or physical injury to the lungs can also produce pneumonia.
- About 150,000 - 570,00 cases of bacterial pneumonia occur annually in the United States.
- Typical symptoms include cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty in breathing
- Pneumonia causes up to 40,000 deaths in the United States annually.
- Pneumonia is a common disease that occurs in all age groups.
- About 5 percent of all people who contract pneumonia die from it.
- Bacterial pneumonia is treated with antibiotics.
- The overall case-fatality rate among the elderly with pneumococcal pneumonia is 30-40 percent.
- Viruses have been found to account for between 18—28 percent of pneumonia in a few studies.
- Pneumococcal bacteria are transmitted via person to person contact with infected respiratory droplets.
- In the U.S. pneumonia is the fifth leading cause of death.
- Viral pneumonia is commonly caused by viruses such as influenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), adenovirus, and parainfluenza.
- Rates of infection are three-times higher in African Americans than in whites.
- On an international scale, acute respiratory infection ranks as the third most frequent cause of death among children less than 5 years old.
- The noses and throats of up to seventy percent of healthy people contain pneumococcus bacterias at any given time.
- Pneumococcus is spread from person to person by coughing, sneezing, or close contact.
Some facts about Pneumonia
