 Namaskar and dear friends, today we will be talking about a very common thing that we are suffering these days that is a respiratory tract infection. Most of the people you must be finding anybody around you in your office, at home, your colleagues, your friends, they will complain of some sort of a respiratory infection and we need to discuss and we need to know, be aware of what this respiratory infection is about. So respiratory tract means my organs of the system which helps in my breathing systems. So it includes right from my nose to my throat to my trachea to my lungs and anywhere if this infection is present, it is called as a respiratory tract infection. So it's a very broad term to make it more concise, we will divide into two parts. One is an upper respiratory tract and second one is a lower respiratory tract. Lower means an infection encompassing the nose, the sinuses, the throat, the vocal cords and lower means those that are involving the bronchi, bronchioles and the lungs. Now we must be, all of us are aware that in this season, change in season with so much of pollution around us, with so much of change in temperature and cold environment around us, we have often encountered many cases of respiratory tract infection these days. Now we need to understand who are the vulnerable group for this patient. Number one is the children because children are not so much immune. Number one, they are developing their immunity over a period of time. Secondly, children don't have a habit of washing their hands very often. So with the result, they may get this infection more often. Then elderly people who are immunocompromised like those people who already have diseases like heart diseases, lung diseases, liver diseases, those people who are fighting cancers and those people who are immunocompromised because of diabetes or other symptoms. So they are the ones who may more often catch these infections than a normal healthy individual. With the environment, with the level of pollution, with the temperature change, these things tend to get exisberated more than others. Now what are the causes? So the causes mostly are the viruses. So we have to be aware that it is the virus most often, which is a cause of this particular type of an infection, particularly the upper respiratory tract infection. And when there is a virus, we have to understand that many a times it is self-limiting. It may take some longer time and it may need some supportive treatment, but most often an antibiotic is not required in these conditions. Now let's talk one by one about various types of respiratory infections that we encounter. Now first we have a common flu, cold. So there are so many viruses, flu viruses and cold viruses and coxsessy viruses and respiratory sensational viruses, which can give rise to cold. And mind it, these viruses keep on changing their form rapidly. So that's the reason why we don't have any immunity and then we have these episodes of colds happening in our lives. But sometimes this cold becomes a little more prolonged. Why? Because this cold has resulted in sinusitis, which means the sinuses which are there in my head around my nasal passages, they get blocked or they get occluded by the mucous and by the mucous plug over there. And with the result, what happens is that the phlegm gets collected over there and it results in fever, headache and sometimes nasal blockage as well. Then we go a little bit further, then we go into the pharynx. That means there's an infection of the throat in the form of tonsillitis or in the form of pharyngeitis and again the treatment remains symptomatic. And further down, we have a condition called as apiglottitis, which means the path where the place where the air enters into the trachea. So there is a sort of a valve called as apiglottis and sometimes this is a very serious infection. Why? Because it presents to us sometimes as a medical emergency with inability to breathe with throat pain with cough and with fever. And further down, when we go into the respiratory system, there can be laryngitis, which means infection of the vocal cords or the region of my airway around the vocal cords, which manifests as cough as horses of voice, inability to speak or my volume and my voice has altered and throat pain as well. Now many a times these infections are self-limited, means they may go with symptomatic small mild home remedies also over a period of time, but we may have to seek a consultation from a doctor. Now what are the telltale signs for which you have to come to the doctor? So it is high-grade fever, if it is more than 100 and 304, it's a time when you need to see a doctor. If it's a persistent cough which is not responding or there is some blood in the cough or the phlegm is greenish, dark greenish, very foul-smelling, yellowish. In that case, you need to come to the doctor because it may be because of a secondary infection as well. Shortness of breath, wheezing is again a reason why you should see a doctor around you when these symptoms are happening, because many a times it may need nebulization because of the bronchospasm which is happening as a consequence of these particular infections. Now bacteria again can be a cause of all these infections, but then there are different types of bacteria for which we have to give an adequate treatment and that is the time when some of the antibiotics may be used. But that desecration is with the clinician who is observing and who is examining the patient. Now we come to symptoms of the lower respiratory tract. So mostly the infections are like any other pneumonia which you must have seen and we have already experienced it during the Covid times as well. So it means that the infection is involving my lower parts of the respiratory system which means bronchi, bronchioles and the lungs. So it can manifest as bronchitis, acute bronchitis it can manifest as a bronchiolitis which is the smallest part of the airway which gets infected or if it involves the airway as such then it is called as the pneumonitis that means the lung sparse is infected. So this is again something which needs to be evaluated and treated accordingly based upon the cause of the infection. Now how do we evaluate these things? The evaluation is simple you have first it is a clinical examination, clinical examination, clinical examination. So somebody needs to be seen by the doctor or by the attending physician and then we take a call whether the investigation has to be done as I mentioned that most of these infections could be managed at home properly with a home remedy as well and not everybody will need all the investigations. Now whenever we have such conditions where investigation is to be required so basic investigation would be a chest x-ray and if we find something on a chest x-ray or the index of suspicion is high then we may go for other scans also like CT scans sometimes a pulmonary function test is also required. There may be a blood work up also in some cases to assess the severity of the infections or to assess the effect of those infections on to the rest of the body parts as well. Now there are certain specific tests against the viruses which we can do like most commonly we have been doing against the influenza virus which is a swine flu virus or even against the COVID virus as we have been seeing so that is based upon the epidemiology of that particular time that is based upon the clinical condition and the index of suspicion as well. As I mentioned treatment is mostly supportive some people need antibiotics only when there is a suspected bacterial infection, they need bronchodilators, they need anti-allergics, they need adequate fluids to intake management of fever by antibiotics which have to be given we have to use cough subs at time to allay the cough or to suppress the cough so that patient's quality of life is also improved and as I told very rarely patient mean hospitalization because the infection may not improve because of all these things. Now prevention is always better than cure now how to prevent it most common is that we have to understand these infections rapidly spread why because they spread by shaking hands by touching nose and oral mucosa very often or when we cough or sneeze and we do not cover our face or nose with a cloth or with a barrier that time we are able to that time we spread the infection into the air and somebody else may catch it our near ones may catch it. We often note that most people who have an infection they never take a rest they tend to go to offices or visit public places and with the result what happens this infection spreads to the community as well. So we need to understand whenever we have flu like symptoms cough and cold it is our community responsibility to stay home and to take all the precautions so that I do not or I may be not remain out of the reason for giving this infection to the other so this is something which we need to be very conscious about and aware about. One thing is frequent hand washing this frequent hand washing helps us in getting rid of organisms which are mostly attached to our hands and we should not be sharing our our our towels our cloths our bed sheets our handkerchiefs with anybody because that is a source of infection which people may get cough etiquette and hand hygiene is the most important thing in all the all such cases to prevent further infection of this this this problem or further mitigation of this problem is by these remedial methods. Vaccination has also been proposed in some cases as as we have seen in case of of COVID that vaccination is helpful in the same way for influenza we have vaccination against influenza also available with us. So vaccination always remains a a method for us to prevent this disorder but it is not recommended for a general population so there are high risk groups for which these vaccinations for viruses like influenza and COVID or for bacteria like pneumococcal viruses has been recommended there are but there are some specific groups and specific ages where this has been recommended. I hope this this particular piece of information has been useful to you and you will be able to have some have some knowledge from this so that we are able to live a healthy life and we are able to prevent the dissemination of these particular disorders and limit them to our own selves or not allow them to spread to our families our our near and dear ones thank you so much.