Rehab Medical

Health information

Chest infections

A chest infection covers everything from acute bronchitis, which is viral and gets better on its own over two to three weeks, to pneumonia, which is bacterial and needs treating promptly. The cough is not what separates them — the breathing, the pulse, the oxygen level and how ill someone looks are. In Cairo, where the annual PM2.5 average sits several times above the WHO guideline and about one adult in five smokes, a cough that will not clear deserves examining rather than another course of tablets.

When it cannot wait

Signs that mean today

These are not reasons to book an appointment. They are reasons to be seen now, or to call an ambulance on 123.

  • Struggling to breathe at rest, unable to finish a sentence, or breathing fast and shallow — emergency department.
  • Blue or grey lips or fingertips, or an oxygen reading below 92% if you have a home monitor.
  • Coughing up blood, or chest pain with sudden breathlessness — that combination needs excluding a clot the same day.
  • In a child: fast breathing (over 50 breaths a minute under one year, over 40 from one to five), the lower chest drawing inward with each breath, or a harsh noise on breathing in.

When to book

Reasons to be seen

  • The cough has gone past three weeks, or it is getting worse rather than slowly better.
  • You are more breathless than usual on your ordinary walk, stairs or prayers.
  • You have a fever with one-sided chest pain that is worse on breathing in.
  • You smoke, have asthma or COPD, are over 65, or get chest infections more than twice a year — repeated infections are a pattern worth investigating, not a run of bad luck.

Published data

Chest infections in Egypt

22.7%
of Egyptian adults currently use tobaccoSmoking is behind most of the repeat chest infections a family doctor sees, and behind the cough that turns out to be something else.Source: Egypt STEPS survey, ages 15–69 (WHO, Ministry of Health and Population, CAPMAS), 2017

What a visit looks like

What a visit for this involves

  • 25–30 minutesClinic visitAt the clinic, unhurried
  • 20 minutesVideo consultationFrom anywhere in Egypt
  • 15 minutesFollow-upAfter a recent visit, same complaint

In the room

What the doctor checks

  1. Listening to both lungs, plus the numbers that actually decide severity: temperature, pulse, respiratory rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation.
  2. A judgement on whether this is viral bronchitis, pneumonia, an asthma or COPD flare, or reflux and post-nasal drip pretending to be a chest infection. They are treated completely differently.
  3. A chest X-ray or bloods when the examination suggests pneumonia or the picture does not fit — not routinely for every cough.
  4. If you smoke: five honest minutes about stopping, and a plan if you want one. It is the single most effective thing available for your chest — more than any inhaler.

Come prepared

What to bring

  • Any inhalers you use, including the ones you have stopped — and show us how you use them. Poor inhaler technique is the commonest reason a chest 'does not respond'.
  • Any previous chest X-ray or CT, even on a phone photo, so we can compare rather than start from zero.
  • How many cigarettes or shisha sessions a day, honestly. It is a clinical fact, not a moral one.

Next step

Tell us what's happening and we'll arrange the right kind of visit.

Message the clinic on WhatsApp. We reply with the times that are free and what the visit costs, before you agree to anything.

Book on WhatsApp

At home

Between visits

  • A cough after a chest infection can last three weeks and still be normal healing. What matters is the direction of travel, not the calendar.
  • On high-pollution days — and Cairo has many — keep windows shut in the early morning traffic peak and during the autumn burning season, especially for children and anyone with asthma.
  • If you were given an antibiotic, finish the course as prescribed and come back if you are not clearly better by day three.

Before you write

Questions patients ask

Written and clinically reviewed by Dr. Rehab Ahmed, MBBCh, Ain Shams University · Diploma in Family Medicine. Last reviewed August 2026.

What this page is based on

This page is general information written by the practice. It is not a diagnosis and does not replace seeing a doctor. In an emergency, call 123.

We also treat

Other things we look after