Streptococcus pneumoniae as a cause of early onset neonatal sepsis: first report from Kuwait

ABSTRACT

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a rarely recognized cause of neonatal sepsis. We present a case of S. pneumoniae bacteremia that developed on the second day of life in a neonate born at 38 weeks of gestation to a mother who had prolonged rupture of the membranes [19 hours]. The isolate was penicillin sensitive. The child responded to a 14 day course of antibiotics. S. pneumoniae was isolated from the vagina of the mother by a swab culture collected prior to delivery, and isolates from the mother and the baby had the same sensitivity patterns. This case expands the spectrum of organisms responsible for early onset neonatal sepsis in Kuwait. To our knowledge, such an incident was not previously reported from Kuwait