The typical symptoms of pneumonia in children are high grade fever. It is also fast breathing and cough. Cough sometimes may not be present but a high grade fever and a fast difficulty. Sometimes they may present a difficulty in feeding when they are younger children. The younger the child, the more the severity can be of pneumonia. to prevent pneumonia, you can give the vaccines known as the pneumococcal and HIB influenza and also the parents should be aware of these kind of symptoms so that there is no delay in referring such a child to the nearest hospital facility. So mainly I would say fever, fats breathing and difficulty in breathing or feeding and cough. The management of pneumonia is as follows. It depedns on the severity of the illness. if the child is brought early in the course of the disease, it is just a fever and a cough, this child can be treated on an outpatient basis and we can treat them on oral antibiotics and tell them about the danger signs which if are present they need to come back early and they need a regular follow up for this. In case the severity of the illness is more, that is if there is a difficulty in breathing and the child is not able to feed at all, it is better that the child is treated in the hospital itself after admissions. typically we start the on iv fluids to maintain their duration, we start them on iv antibiotics based on the pathogen that we suspect. We get an x-ray done to see what is the severity and the extent of the pneumonia and we asses them every day. When there are viral epidemics like the flu virus that is currently present in Pune, we start them on antiviral treatment. Generally we get a good response to antibiotics after 48 to 72 hours. The criteria for the discharge would be if the child is not having any breathing difficulty, fever has settled and have a reasonable oral intake. That can be the criteria to discharge . However in all such cases, the parents should be aware of the danger signs , which if present the child should be brought back.
