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Pneumonia is a severe lung infection. Before the advent of antibiotics, pneumonia was often fatal, but it is readily treatable today. Many patients with pneumonia are treated by their own GP and never admitted to hospital. This is often called walking pneumonia because although they can be very ill the patient is still mobile. Some people with walking pneumonia never realise they are ill at all, but merely feel 'run down' and exhausted.
Pneumonia is still a serious illness, especially among the elderly and the immuno-compromised. AIDS patients frequently contract pneumocystis pneumonia, an otherwise rare form of the disease. Persons with cystic fibrosis are also at very high risk of pneumonia because fluid continually accumulates in their lungs.