Pneumococcal infection among hospitalized Egyptian children

Aim: we aimed to describe the detection rate spectrum of clinical manifestations,and outcome of pneumococcal disease in children younger than 5 years admitted to the largest referral pediatric hospital in egypt. materials and methods: this was a hospital-based study to detect laboratory-confirmed streptococcus pneumoniae cases among children younger than 5 years. data on demographic characteristics,clinical diagnosis,comorbidities,diagnostic tests,antibiotic resistance,and clinical outcome were collected during the study years from 2008 to 2011. results: during the 4-year study period,22 018 cases younger than 5 years had cultures performed at cairo university pediatric hospital microbiology laboratory. we estimated the annual detection rate of total streptococcus pneumonia infection to be 54.5/100 000. the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) was half the incidence of non-ipd (18.2 and 36.4/100 000,respectively). infants of 1 year or younger were statistically more vulnerable to streptococcus pneumonia infection compared with children between 1 and 5 years of age (annual rate: 110.5/100 000 and 21.6/100 000,respectively). the overall pneumococcal annual case fatality was 33.3% and was higher in ipd (75%) than in non-ipd (12.5%) cases. there was an obviously increasing trend of the pneumococcal detection rate throughout the 4 years of the study (p<0.0001). conclusion and recommendations: our results confirm the substantial and increasing pneumococcal infection,the emerging of multidrug resistant isolates,and the vulnerability of the younger age group and high-risk population,which calls for a national surveillance to inform policy and decision-making before national wide vaccine introduction. © 2015 egyptian public health association.