In most paediatricians’ minds the term staphylococcal pneumonia is associated with a picture of severe bilateral disease in infants and young children, often with pleural effusion, empyema, pneumothorax or pyopneumothorax, lung abscesses, and pneumatoceles. That disease has been uncommon in the wealthier countries since the 1960s. Now an even more virulent form of staphylococcal pneumonia has been described from France (

).

Staphylococcus aureus sometimes carries …