Abstract
Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a common and often serious disease with substantial morbidity and mortality worldwide. The 2004 World Health Organization Global Burden of Disease Study estimated that lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs), which include CAP, were responsible for 429.2 million episodes of illness worldwide and were the leading cause of disease burden measured in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) among all age groups, accounting for 94.5 million DALYs. In adults aged over 59 years, 1.6 million deaths annually are attributed to CAP. LRTIs accounted for 4% of overall deaths in developed regions of the world, compared with the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region, where overall mortality due to LRTIs has been reported to be as high as 10%. The burden of CAP is of even greater concern for aging adults when considering that the number of persons aged over 60 years globally is projected to triple, from 759 million in 2010 to 2 billion by 2050. Streptococcus pneumoniae is the most common pathogen implicated in adult CAP in this region and there is a high level of resistance to penicillin. Increasing resistance to commonly used antibiotics to treat pneumococcal diseases suggests that preventive strategies, including adult vaccination against pneumococcal disease, will be important in the future. The adoption of the recommended Gulf Cooperation Council CAP Working Group guidelines as a standard of care in the MENA region, the development of a regional database to track guideline utilization and clinical outcomes and the strengthening of co-ordinated surveillance through the Eastern Mediterranean Region Surveillance Network will enhance public health efforts to reduce the burden of CAP in adult patients in the MENA region. Future discussions are required to facilitate the implementation of these concepts throughout the region. (C) 2010 Wolters Kluwer Health vertical bar Lippincott Williams & Wilkins