Field testing two existing, standardized respiratory severity scores (LIBSS and ReSViNET) in infants presenting with acute respiratory illness to tertiary hospitals in Rwanda - a validation and inter-rater reliability study.

Introduction: There is a substantial burden of respiratory disease in infants in the sub-Saharan Africa region. Many health care providers (HCPs) that initially receive infants with respiratory distress may not be adequately skilled to differentiate between mild, moderate and severe respiratory symptoms, which may contribute to poor management and outcome. Therefore, respiratory severity scores have the potential to contributing to address this gap.