Although the patients from developing countries were hypothesised to have high levels of CRP because of the prevalence of infectious diseases, the current study found that the distribution for LRTs is comparable to that in patients in the Netherlands, where 69%, 24% and 7% of patients had <20 gm/l, 20–99 gm/l and >100 gm/l, respectively.2 Here, CRP is linked to infectious disease.