Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from the nasal carriage and its antibiotic susceptibility profiles in children

摘要

Background and objective: The prevalence of Streptococcus pneumoniae and resistanceto antibiotics have become a public health problem in different countries of the world. Thisstudy aimed to investigate the occurrence of Streptococcus pneumoniae nasal carriageamong children, and their antibiotics susceptibility profiles.Methods: A nasal swab was obtained from 1092 healthy children aged from 6 to13 yearsin Erbil Parks, Kurdistan region, Iraq. The swabs were cultured on appropriate culturemedia to isolate Streptococcus pneumoniae and to examine their susceptibility toantibiotics. The antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed using the standarddisk-diffusion method.Results: Streptococcus pneumoniae was isolated from 224 (20.51%) of the specimens;57.59%, and 56.25% of isolates were resistant to penicillin and ampicillin, respectively,while 3.57% and 4.46% were resistant to clarithromycin and moxifloxacin, respectively.None of the isolates had resistant to vancomycin.Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of penicillin and another β-lactam drug resistanceamong isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae from the nasal carriage of children in ourregion.