Nasopharyngeal carriage of respiratory pathogens among children in Oman

ABSTRACT

In order to determine the carriage rate of Streptococcus pneumoniae and heamophilus influenzae and their antibiotic susceptibility patterns among children in Oman, we collected nasopharyngeal swabs from 200 children under the age of 5 years and cultured them for s.pneumoniae and H. influenzae. Antibiotic susceptibilities of the isolates were then performed by disc diffusion. S.pneumoniae was isolated from the nasopharynx of 86 [43%] of the children More than half of the isolates were resistant to at least one antibiotic the most common being penicillin [59.3%] and co-trimoxazole [52.3%]. Seventeen [19.7%] of the isolates were multi-resistant. H. influenzae was recovered from 38 [19%] of the children. Five [13.2%] strains were resistant to ampicillin and were Peta-lactmase poroducers. No risk factors for nasopharyngeal carriage of S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae were identified. With such high prevalence of penicillin resistant pneumococci the clinicians should consider altematives to penicillin when treating pneumococcal infections