Methods We performed a screening study for nasopharyngeal carriage of Staphylococcus spp. in immunocompetent children aged 7-10 years old, attending a community school in central Bucharest (group 1), and in two groups of immunosuppressed children: children with hemato-oncologic diseases (lymphoma/leukemia) admitted to the Fundeni Clinical Institute, Bucharest (ages 2-10 years, group 2), and ins...

BACKGROUND Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) reduce nasopharyngeal carriage of vaccine type (VT) pneumococci, an important driver of vaccine programs' overall benefits. The dosing schedule that best reduces carriage is unclear. METHODS We performed a systematic review of English language publications from 1994 to 2010 (supplemented post hoc with studies from 2011) reporting PCV effects on...

  Introduction : Haemophilus influenzae is a gram-negative bacterium causing a variety of respiratory infections in developing countries, especially in children. Nasopharynx carriers of H. influenzae are the prominent source and transitional vectors of invasive diseases. As very limited information on H. influenzae carriage rate in Iran was available, an evaluation on prevalence of this bacteri...

BACKGROUND After the implementation of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7), in several countries, serotype 19A is now the serotype most frequently involved in pneumococcal diseases and carriage. To determine factors potentially related to 19A nasopharyngeal (NP) carriage we analyzed data from an ongoing prospective French national surveillance study of pneumococcal NP carriage in you...

OBJECTIVES Bacterial carriage in the upper respiratory tract is usually asymptomatic but can lead to respiratory tract infection (RTI), meningitis and septicaemia. We aimed to provide a baseline measure of Streptococcus pneumoniae, Moraxella catarrhalis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Haemophilus influenzae and Neisseria meningitidis carriage within the community. Self-swabbing ...

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of nasopharyngeal carriage, serotype distribution, and penicillin resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae in children ≤ 6 years of age in Ghana. METHODS A cross-sectional study was carried out on a cluster-randomized sample of children ≤ 6 years of age attending nurseries and kindergartens in Accra and Tamale, Ghana. Basic ...

The prevalence ofStreptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) carriage is higher in adults who are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) than in adults who are not. We hypothesized that infants exposed to HIV become carriers of nasopharyngeal pneumococcus earlier and more frequently than infants who are not exposed to HIV. We compared infant pneumococcal acquisition by maternal HIV status...

BACKGROUND The Sahel region of West Africa has the highest bacterial meningitis attack and case fatality rate in the world. The effect of climatic factors on patterns of invasive respiratory bacterial disease is not well documented. OBJECTIVE We aimed to assess the link between climatic factors and occurrence of invasive respiratory bacterial disease in a Sahel region of Niger. METHODS We c...

The effect of antibiotic therapy on nasopharyngeal colonization by Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae was evaluated in children diagnosed with acute otitis media. Children were randomly assigned to receive either amoxicillin/clavulanate or azithromycin therapy, and nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained for culture before and after starting therapy. Amoxicillin/clavulanate therapy ...