Pope Francis has been hospitalised with double pneumonia. Here’s everything you need to know about the infection.

Pneumonia is already scary enough, but what is double pneumonia? The infection is keeping Pope Francis in hospital, and the Vatican has released a statement saying, “the laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and clinical conditions of the Holy Father continue to present a complex picture."

"(A) chest CAT scan which the Holy Father received this afternoon … showed the onset of bilateral pneumonia that requires further pharmacological therapy.”

Pneumonia is an infection causing inflammation of the lungs, and filling small sacs in the lungs called alveoli with pus and fluid. This makes breathing difficult and often painful.

It is usually diagnosed through X-ray scans – with typically clear lungs appearing to be filled with fluid in imaging.

Symptoms of the infection include coughing, shortness of breath, aches and pains, exhaustion, confusion, fever and coughing up mucus. 

Babies, adults over 65, people with lung damage or disease, smokers and immunocompromised people are more at risk of developing pneumonia. 

The 88-year-old pontiff has a long history of respiratory illness as part of his lung was removed when he was younger due to pleurisy. 

The infection is typically treated with antibiotics, fluids and oxygen if patients are struggling to breathe.

Many people recover within weeks.

What is double pneumonia?

Also called ‘bilateral pneumonia’, double pneumonia is when the infection is affecting both lungs. 

It’s more serious than common pneumonia as both lungs can be inflamed and scarred, and patients have less healthy lung capacity to breathe.

According to lung specialist Dr Wayne Tsuang, the likelihood of a patient getting pneumonia in one or both lungs is “largely due to chance”, regardless of whether the infection is viral, fungal or bacterial.