Respiratory infection is a common illness. Antibiotic therapy is an essential treatment in clinical practices, but it is challenged by drug-resistant pathogenic microbes. Nowadays, there are many great improvements in some novel non-antimicrobial therapies for preventing and treating respiratory infection, such as enhancing the secretion of endogenous antibiotic peptides to improve innate immune defense of mucous membrane, attaching importance to research and application of vaccine over again, reducing the adhesion and attachment of microbes to block their invasion, and treating systemic inflammatory response syndrome resulting from severe infection. In Chinese herbal pharmacological studies, we found some herbs have antimicrobial function, and furthermore, these herbs have potential effects of immunoregulation. Chinese herbs are worthy of tapping potentialities of research and exploiture.

Key words: respiratory infection, antiinfection, non-antimicrobial therapy, Chinese traditional medicine therapy