Significance of respiratory infections for fatalities of infants and children

Fatal infections play an important role as the cause of death in infants and children, in particular infectious diseases of the central nervous system, the respiratory tract, the circulatory system including the heart, and the intestines. Infections of the respiratory tract cause 0.8% of all deaths within the first year of life as well as approximately 3% of deaths in children aged between 2 and 15 years old. Important diseases are epiglottitis and various types of pneumonia, mainly bronchopneumonia and interstitial pneumonia including bronchiolitis/peribronchiolitis. Often such infections show symptoms different from adults and with atypical autopsy findings, therefore, histological examination of specimens taken from all parts of the respiratory tract is important. Additionally, microbiological screening can be recommended to complete the diagnostic procedure. In infants special problems arise with regards to cases of sudden infant death syndrome. Such deaths are often associated with inflammatory diseases of the respiratory tract, which are not usually sufficient to explain the cause of death.