• hypoxaemia
• respiratory illness

Duke et al are to be commended for their interesting report aimed to determine normal oxygen saturation values in healthy infants and children and to assess the performance of clinical signs for predicting hypoxaemia in sick neonates and children with and without acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI).¹

Acute lower respiratory infections (ALRI) account for a substantial burden of disease in children and adults, pneumonia being the leading cause of deaths in children under five, particularly in developing countries. Tachypnoea and chest retraction have been shown to be the most useful clinical signs for determining the presence of pneumonia and thus they are widely used in the diagnosis and management of this condition in children.² The World Health Organization pneumonia case detection and …