what are the factors that influence the etiology and course of respiratory infections

by Marta Dach 7 min read

Symptoms

There are several factors affecting respiratory disorders some of them are: These are the diseases that affect the tubes or airways or the passage which carries the oxygen and other gases into the lungs and out of the lungs. This normally causes the narrowing or blockage of the airways or passage.

Causes

Smoking is a common risk factor for URI Immunocompromised individuals including those with cystic fibrosis, HIV, use of corticosteroids, transplantation, and post-splenectomy are at high risk for URI Anatomical anomalies including facial dysmorphic changes or nasal polyposis also increase the risk of URI Epidemiology

Prevention

Etiology: Causative agents of lower respiratory infections are viral or bacterial. Viruses cause most cases of bronchitis and bronchiolitis. In community-acquired pneumonias, the most common bacterial agent is Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Complications

Common Agents of Respiratory Infections. Pathogenesis: Organisms gain entry to the respiratory tract by inhalation of droplets and invade the mucosa. Epithelial destruction may ensue, along with redness, edema, hemorrhage and sometimes an exudate.

What are the factors affecting respiratory disorders?

What are the risk factors for upper respiratory tract infections?

What are the causes of lower respiratory tract infections?

What is the pathogenesis of respiratory infection?

Explore

What are the different factors that causes infection to the respiratory system?

You get an upper respiratory infection when a virus (or bacteria) enters your respiratory system. For example, you might touch an infected surface or shake hands with a person who's sick. You then touch your mouth, nose or eyes. The germs from your hands enter and infect your body.

What is the etiology of common upper respiratory infections?

The most common virus is rhinovirus. Other viruses include the influenza virus, adenovirus, enterovirus, and respiratory syncytial virus. Bacteria may cause roughly 15% of sudden onset pharyngitis presentations.

What are 4 types of respiratory infections?

Differences Between the Most Common Respiratory Infections. Four of the most common types of respiratory infections are COVID-19, the flu, pneumococcal disease, and colds.

What are the risk factors of acute respiratory infection?

Acute respiratory infections are among the top five childhood killer diseases, the risk factors identified in this study such as age, sex, poor breast feeding practice, overcrowding, malnutrition, poor socio-economic status, attendance to day care centers and passive smoking were similar to the documented risk factors ...

What are respiratory infections?

Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are infections of parts of the body involved in breathing, such as the sinuses, throat, airways or lungs. Most RTIs get better without treatment, but sometimes you may need to see a GP.

What are three common respiratory infections?

Upper Respiratory Infections: Common Cold, Sinusitis, Pharyngitis, Epiglottitis and Laryngotracheitis.

What are the most common respiratory diseases?

Some of the most common are chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, occupational lung diseases and pulmonary hypertension. In addition to tobacco smoke, other risk factors include air pollution, occupational chemicals and dusts, and frequent lower respiratory infections during childhood.

What are the different types of respiratory diseases?

UnityPoint Health pulmonologist, Jim Meyer, DO, tells us the top eight respiratory system illnesses.Asthma. ... Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) ... Chronic Bronchitis. ... Emphysema. ... Lung Cancer. ... Cystic Fibrosis/Bronchiectasis. ... Pneumonia. ... Pleural Effusion.More items...•

What bacteria cause respiratory infections?

Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae and Moraxella catarrhalis are the most common bacterial pathogens in upper and lower respiratory tract infections.

What is an upper respiratory infection?

Upper respiratory tract infections can be defined as self-limited irritation and swelling of the upper airways with associated cough with no proof of pneumonia, lacking a separate condition to account for the patient symptoms, or with no history of COPD/emphysema/chronic bronchitis. [1]  Upper respiratory tract infections involve the nose, ...

What are the causes of the common cold?

After deposition in the anterior nasal mucosa, rhinovirus replication and infection are thought to begin upon mucociliary transport to the posterior nasopharynx and adenoids. As soon as 10 to 12 hours after inoculation, symptoms may begin. The mean duration of symptoms is 7 to 10 days, but symptoms can persist for as long as 3 weeks. Nasal mucosal infection and the host's subsequent inflammatory response cause vasodilation and increased vascular permeability. These events result in nasal obstruction and rhinorrhea whereas cholinergic stimulation prompts mucus production and sneezing.

What is the most common illness in healthcare?

Upper respiratory tract infections are one of the most common illnesses that healthcare workers will encounter in an outpatient setting. The infection may vary from the common cold to a life-threatening illness like acute epiglottitis. Because of the diverse causes and presentation, upper respiratory tract infections are best managed by an interprofessional team.

How long does it take for rhinovirus to spread?

As soon as 10 to 12 hours after inoculation, symptoms may begin.

How many times a year do you get a cold?

Adults obtain a common cold around two to three times yearly whereas pediatrics can have up to eight cases yearly. [3],[4],[5]  Fall months see a peak in incidence of common cold caused by the rhinovirus.

When testing for influenza, what is the best specimen to obtain?

When testing for influenza, obtain specimens as close to symptom onset as possible. Nasal aspirates and swabs are the best specimens to obtain when testing infants and young children. For older children and adults, swabs and aspirates from the nasopharynx are preferred.

Which organ contains immunological cells that attack pathogens?

The adenoids and tonsils also contain immunological cells that attack the pathogens.

Factors Associated With Respiratory Disorders

There are several factors affecting respiratory disorders some of them are:

Types of Respiratory System Diseases

These are the diseases that affect the tubes or airways or the passage which carries the oxygen and other gases into the lungs and out of the lungs. This normally causes the narrowing or blockage of the airways or passage. Airway diseases are such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and bronchiectasis.

Causes of Respiratory Diseases

We are facing different types of respiratory disorders major disorders are:

Things to Remember

The respiratory system is the major system for breathing and heart functioning.

Sample Questions

Ans: Allergic asthma: This type of asthma which is caused by various allergens, such as pollen grains and atmospheric dust, chemicals.

What are the environmental factors that affect respiratory virus transmission?

Environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, weather, and ventilation are hypothesized to have an impact on various aspects of the transmission chain.

How does airflow affect respiratory viruses?

Though relatively few data exist, airflow (the speed of air currents flowing through indoor spaces) and ventilation (the degree of mixing between indoor and outdoor air) seem to play a role in respiratory virus infectivity and transmission. Schulman and Kilbourne again made prescient early observations of the effect of airflow on the transmissibility of influenza viruses in the mouse model, demonstrating that the rate of transmission decreased with increasing ventilation of a closed chamber in which mice were housed [23]. A similar phenomenon was observed with rhinovirus; the probability of detecting airborne picornavirus RNA in office buildings was directly correlated with the carbon dioxide (CO2) content of the air, which is in turn inversely related to ventilation with fresh outside air [58]; however, there were too few positive nasal samples to correlate CO2content with actual human infection.

How does humidity affect the transmission of viruses?

Transmission of viruses via airborne routes may be affected by ambient humidity, which affects not only the virus’ stability but also respiratory droplet size, as water content evaporates. In turn, droplet size influences whether the particle will quickly settle to the ground or remain airborne long enough to be inhaled into the respiratory tract of a susceptible host. For influenza virus, mathematical modeling suggests that RH is an important variable in airborne transmission of influenza virus; high RH favors removal of infectious particles both by increasing the settling of large, water-laden droplets and by hastening virus inactivation [27]. In aerosol viability experiments, adenovirus [28, 29] and rhinovirus [30] were more stable at high RH; by contrast, a bovine parainfluenza virus was more stable at low RH [31], while RSV demonstrated bimodal peak stability at 20% or 40–60% RH with relative instability at 30% [32]. Influenza viruses are also generally more stable at lower RH; some studies have observed a bimodal stability similar to that seen by Lowen et al., while others have not [20••]. However, these data should not be overinterpreted, as aerosol generation protocols and thus particle size and composition were not necessarily uniform across experiments.

What are the factors that affect the transmission of RSV?

Another environmental factor that may influence viral transmissibility is precipitation . Several large-scale studies have been conducted in tropical and equatorial countries in order to determine the relationship between rainfall and respiratory disease, particularly that associated with RSV and, to a lesser extent, influenza virus. A 3-year study of RSV infections in Lombok, Indonesia (8°S) found an association between rainfall and RSV hospitalizations; interestingly, total monthly precipitation was less important than the number of days on which it rained [39]. In a study from 1982 to 1997 in Malaysia (4°N) involving over 5000 children, Chan et al.also documented a significant correlation between number of rainy days and RSV infection [40]. An association between rain and RSV infection has also been seen in several other studies [41, 42, 43, 44]. By contrast, a large, 3378-children study in Northern Taiwan (23°N) did not find any association between rainfall and RSV infection [45••], nor did a 2002 study in Santiago, Chile (33°S). Of note, however, the Chilean study focused on cases in just one public pediatric hospital [46]; it is possible that a limited sampling of cases in only one hospital would hinder the ability to draw statistically significant conclusions. However, studies in other locations have found the relationship between RSV disease and rainfall to be inversely related. In a 24-month study of over 1000 symptomatic children in India (22°N), RSV infection rates were negatively correlated with millimeters of rainfall; these findings were statistically significant [47].

How does a virus transmit through the air?

Virus transmits through the air by droplet sprays (such as those produced by coughing or sneezing); a key feature is deposition of droplets by impaction on exposed mucous membranes.

What is RH in air?

RH is a ratio that describes the actual water vapor pressure of air, relative to its vapor pressure at saturation. Because saturation vapor pressure is exponentially related to temperature, RH varies both with the temperature and with the water vapor content of air. Absolute humidity (AH), on the contrary, describes the actual water vapor content of air, without respect to temperature. Thus, at equivalent RH, warm air contains more water vapor (i.e. has higher AH) than cold air [33]. A reanalysis of the data of Lowen et al.showed that, although RH and temperature were both weakly correlated with influenza virus transmission efficiency, AH was strongly associated with transmission efficiency, with efficiency decreasing as vapor content of air increases [33]. Subsequent analyses of epidemiological and meteorological data in temperate areas in the United States [34] and Japan [35] suggest that low AH correlates strongly with the onset of influenza epidemic activity, more so than RH.

How does a virus get into the air?

Virus transmits through the air by aerosols in the inspirable size range or smaller; aerosol particles are small enough to be inhaled into the oronasopharynx and distally into the trachea and lung.

What are the risk factors for respiratory infections?

Risk Factors for Viral Upper Respiratory Infections (Colds and Influenza) A risk factor is something that increases your likelihood of getting a disease or condition. It is possible to develop a cold or influenza with or without the risk factors listed below. However, the more risk factors you have, the greater your likelihood ...

What are some examples of medical conditions?

Examples include: People who are sick. People who have cardiac, respiratory, or kidney disease. People who have suppressed immune systems. People with allergies or asthma.

Why are people with mental disabilities at risk for getting sick?

People with physical or mental disabilities may have trouble practicing preventive measures, and they may not be able to easily communicate their symptoms. These issues place them at an increased risk for getting sick and for having complications.