GPs are unnecessarily giving patients antibiotics for respiratory tract (RT) infections which would clear up on their own. Doctors tend to over-emphasise symptoms such as white spots in the throat, rather than looking at factors such as old age and co-morbidity, which would affect a patient's recovery, according to an article published in the online open access journal, BMC Family Practice.

CSIRO scientists have played a key role in discovering that bats are the likely host of a new virus that can cause a serious but apparently non-fatal respiratory tract illness in humans.