Nguyen PTK, et al. - Via this prospective descriptive study, researchers tried to characterize disease profile and evaluate risk factors for an adverse outcome in paediatric (2–59 months) hospital admissions attributed to “pneumonia” (per clinician assessment), to assess the potential significance of using the World Health Organisation (WHO) case management approach in Vietnam. WHO pneumonia criteria were used to classify disease profile, with tachypnea or chest indrawing as defining clinical signs. WHO criteria for “severe pneumonia” was met by few hospital admissions; implying potential unnecessary hospitalisation and use of intravenous antibiotics. WHO classified “severe pneumonia”, age <1 year, low birth weight, previous recent admission with an acute respiratory infection and recent tuberculosis exposure were the identified risk factors for adverse outcome (defined as death, intensive care unit admission, tertiary care transfer or hospital stay>10 days). Reduced risk was observed in relation to breastfeeding, day care attendance and preadmission antibiotic use.