Infectious Lung Diseases
Learn about respiratory diseases, how they spread, treatment and prevention.
Most infectious respiratory diseases are spread from person to person, which means that if one person in a school, workplace, home or community gets an infectious disease, they can spread it to others. The spread may occur through the air or from direct or indirect contact with an infected individual. Each year, infectious respiratory diseases cause hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. There are tools to help protect against serious illness.
Understanding Respiratory Viruses
Infectious respiratory diseases such as influenza or COVID-19 spread from person to person. Learn how your body fights back against these pathogens and some of the common side effects that you may experience as your immune system attacks.
Common Infectious Respiratory Diseases
Preventing Infectious Respiratory Diseases
Treating Infectious Respiratory Diseases
While each disease has slightly different symptoms, diagnostic tests, and treatment options, these overarching concepts provide a broad overlay for treatment.
Contact Your Healthcare Provider
- Testing. Many infectious respiratory diseases have similar symptoms such as runny nose, fatigue, and a cough, but may require different treatments. Many testing locations offer testing for multiple infectious respiratory diseases, most commonly COVID-19 and influenza. Talk to your healthcare provider about testing if you have symptoms.
- Monitoring Symptoms. If the person who is sick is young, an older adult or lives with a chronic disease, their primary healthcare provider will want to monitor their recovery. You should also call your healthcare provider whenever there is a new or persisting symptom that worries you. You can determine with your healthcare provider when they would like to be contacted with changes in your illness and which symptoms require you to call right away or seek urgent care.
- Treatment Options:
- Supportive Care. This means treating the symptoms while the disease runs its course. An example is to recommend bed rest when feeling tired. Other suggestions include staying hydrated, monitoring symptom and temperature changes, taking recommended over-the-counter medications and reporting new or lingering.
- Antiviral Medications. For diseases such as influenza and COVID-19, antiviral medication may be recommended by your healthcare provider. Antivirals have been shown to reduce symptoms if started within a day or two of getting sick so it is important to speak to your healthcare provider right away if you are at high-risk for more severe illness, especially those who might require hospitalization.
Am I at High-Risk?
Depending on the disease, you may be at greater risk for complications if you are an infant, child, older adult, or have a chronic medical condition such as COPD, asthma, pulmonary fibrosis or lung cancer.
Smoking tobacco also raises your risk of getting colds and lung infections like flu or pneumonia and having more severe symptoms.
Antivirals Treat Respiratory Illness
Antiviral treatment can boost your immune system if taken promptly at the onset of symptoms of some infectious respiratory diseases. Learn more about when to contact your healthcare provider how this treatment can help you feel better faster.
More Infectious Respiratory Disease Resources
- Call the Lung HelpLine at 1-800-LUNGUSA to get quick answers to your lung health questions.
- Scan our EACH Breath blog for stories about infectious diseases.
- Use our Lung Disease Lookup to find more information about prevention, symptoms, testing, and treatment of specific lung disease.
- Learn more about How Lungs Work including information about lung capacity and aging.
- Learn about Respiratory Immunization Coverage
- Download Preventing Infectious Respiratory Illnesses Posters
