Respiratory Infections and Antimicrobial Stewardship

Dear Colleagues,

Respiratory tract infections (RTIs) are one of the most common reasons for healthcare consultations worldwide. Antibiotics are frequently prescribed and antimicrobial resistance is an evolving, major global threat to public health. Antibiotics are lifesaving, while they are of very limited benefit in the majority of uncomplicated infections. Antibiotics showed no benefit in symptom improvement for acute respiratory infections such as colds, persisting acute purulent rhinitis, or acute laryngitis, and suggested little absolute benefits for reducing symptom duration or complications in sore throat, bronchitis, sinusitis, and acute otitis media. Treatments for uncomplicated RTIs are mainly symptomatic, and often include analgesics, antipyretics, mucolytics, expectorants, decongestants, natural remedies, and educational interventions, although evidence supporting currently used symptomatic treatment is still limited.

This Special Issue of Antibiotics seeks the submission of manuscripts related to antimicrobial stewardship in respiratory infectious conditions. More specifically, related topics include:

• Clinical trials
• Observational studies
• Mixed-methods research
• Antimicrobial stewardship
• Antibiotic resistance and misuse
• Epidemiology of antimicrobial use
• Natural antimicrobial compounds
• Traditional Chinese medicine
• Probiotics
• Qualitative and quantitative research exploring the determinants of antimicrobial use and resistance and alternative options
• Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on antibiotic-prescription behaviour

Dr. Xiao-Yang (Mio) Hu
Prof. Dr. Yahong Chen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Antibiotics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• respiratory infections
• antimicrobial stewardship
• natural antibiotics
• epidemiology of antimicrobial use
• clinical trials
• observational studies
• mixed-methods research
• systematic reviews and meta-analyses