Profile of community- and hospitalacquired pneumonia cases admitted to Basra General Hospital, Iraq

Over an 18-month period 485 throat swabs and sputum samples were taken from patients admitted to Basra General Hospital, Iraq, with a clinical diagnosis of pneumonia. Most patients (94.0%) had community-acquired pneumonia; 29 (6.0%) had hospital-acquired pneumonia. Patients aged 15 years and males had the highest incidence of pneumonia. Cases were analysed by type of pneumonia: bronchial (76.3%) versus lobar (23.7%), and primary (81.0%) versus secondary (19.0%). The most common pathogen was Streptococcus pneumoniae (43.9%) followed by Mycoplasma pneumoniae (19.4%); a low percentage were Proteus spp. (1.2%). Twenty patients were infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis.