Prevention is better than cure: time to change the focus of community-acquired pneumonia management.

Community-acquired pneumonia is the leading cause of hospital admission for infectious disease in Europe, and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. According to the results of Global Burden of Disease study, in the World Health Organization European region, community-acquired pneumonia accounted for 230000 (2.3%) deaths and 2.2 million (1.5%) disability-adjusted life-years in 2010, and was ranked the fifth most common cause of death in the continent [1]. The incidence of community-acquired pneumonia increases with age and the burden is therefore set to become greater and more costly with the ageing worldwide population.