Respiratory tract infections – the most common cause of uncritical antibiotic prescribing
In the mid of the COVID-19 pandemic, which in Croatia in November and December 2020 killed more people in one day than the flu in a year, it is difficult to discuss any other respiratory infections, because such an outbreak of a virus has not been registered for more than a hundred years. It is characteristic of COVID-19 and influenza that they were originally zoonoses, and with human interventions they were given the opportunity to become a major threat to humans. The SARS-CoV 2 reservoir is, as far as we know, a bat, while birds and bats are reservoir for the flu. What is important to consider in the future is the fact that influenza virus has significantly more frequent mutations than SARS-Cov 2, so prevention of coronavirus by vaccination would be somewhat simpler than that of influenza virus, although both are RNA viruses and therefore prone to antigenic changes. At the same time, one should not forget the prevention and vaccination against pneumococcal disease, which most often causes complications of viral infections and may cause death, especially in groups at increased risk. Due to their wide distribution and high frequency, an overview of all relevant pathogens that cause respiratory diseases in humans is given, and given the great interest in the composition of vaccines against COVID-19, in the chapter on vaccination the composition of vaccines is presented.
Key words:
COVID-19; influenza; prevention; resistance and treatment; respiratory infections; vaccine composition