An international research team may have found a way to block a second wave of death that can result from pneumonia treatment. Antibiotics are effective at killing pneumococcus - the cause of about 50 percent of pneumonias - but as it dies the bacterium releases potentially lethal toxins…

Grant MacKenzie of the MRC Unit in The Gambia and colleagues describe in this week’s PLoS Medicine how they set up a population-based surveillance system to assess the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) on invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and radiological pneumonia in children in The Gambia…

A University of Louisville scientist has determined for the first time how the bacterium that causes Legionnaires’ disease manipulates our cells to generate the amino acids it needs to grow and cause infection and inflammation in the lungs. The results are published online in Science. Yousef Abu Kwaik, Ph.D…

In a breakthrough study published online in The Lancet, researchers from Boston University, Save the Children and the WHO found that young children treated at home for severe pneumonia by Pakistan’s network of “lady health workers” were more likely to get well than children referred to health facilities. The finding could save thousands of children’s lives every year…

Two new studies led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers spotlight the human health effects of exposure to smoke from open fires and dirty cookstoves, the primary source of cooking and heating for 43 percent, or some 3 billion members, of the world’s population. Women and young children in poverty are particularly vulnerable…

Vaccines against the primary cause of deaths from pneumonia in developing countries could save millions of lives and are highly cost-effective, according to a comprehensive new analysis to be released on Thursday, Nov. 10…

A new study from Rhode Island Hospital shows that guidelines concerning testing patients for possible community-acquired pneumonia due to Legionella may underestimate the number of cases being seen by clinicians…

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how a novel type of antibody works against pneumococcal bacteria. The findings, which could improve vaccines against pneumonia, appear in the September/October issue of mBio, the online journal of the American Society for Microbiology…

Queen’s University medical researchers have released some key findings from the first study of its kind done in Canada on the impact of colds and flu on school absenteeism, the workplace, and the economy. The researchers reviewed more than 80 published clinical trials, studies and research projects representing the work of over 300 researchers from more than 100 universities and institutions…

Researchers at the University of Toronto, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), St. Paul’s Hospital and the University of British Columbia have identified a new treatment target for a virus that causes severe lung infections and an estimated 10% of common colds…