Pope Francis, an 88-year-old head of the 1.4 billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is being treated in a hospital for double pneumonia after a respiratory infection.
What is double pneumonia?
Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs, usually caused by a viral or bacterial infection. The Pope has bilateral pneumonia, known as informally double pneumonia, and means that both lungs are affected.
When a person has pneumonia, the lungs called alveoli are filled with small pulses and fluids, which become painful in breathing and restrictions from oxygen intake.
Symptoms may include cough, including cough to mucus, shortness of breath, a temperature, pain, and confusion.
How serious it is?
Many people overcome pneumonia over a few weeks, but many factors can make it more dangerous. It is often more risky for more than 65 infants and adults, as well as with heart disease or pre -existing lung conditions.
The pope is particularly prone to lung infections because he was removed as a young adult and a lung part of a lung.
A statement by the Vatican stated that he developed pneumonia after being hospitalized last week for respiratory infections on top of two other airways, bronchiectasis and asthma bronchitis.
Doctors said that bilateral pneumonia is more severe because it affects both lungs, meaning that the patient has low healthy lung capacity to breathe, doctors said.
How common is pneumonia?
Pneumonia is common. With other lower respiratory tract infections, the World Health Organization says it is one of the major causes of death worldwide.
For example, in the United States, according to the American Thoracic Society, approximately one million old adults with pneumonia and die around 50,000 annually.
Globally, it kills 700,000 children under the age of 5, the WHO is estimated.
How is it treated?
Pneumonia can be treated with antibiotics to help fight viral infections to deal with the cause of infection or anti-viral drugs.
In the hospital, people often get fluids and oxygen.
The Vatican described the Pope’s early respiratory infection as “polymicrobial”, which means that it is caused by a combination of pathogens. This made it more complex to treat it, and he was receiving antibiotics and corticosteroids.
Vatican said that now he is also getting “additional medicinal treatment” for pneumonia.
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