Multidrug-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae Isolates from Healthy Ghanaian Preschool Children.

Microb Drug Resist. 2015 Jul 14. [Epub ahead of print]

Multidrug-Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae Isolates from Healthy Ghanaian Preschool Children.

Dayie NT1,2, Arhin RE1, Newman MJ1, Dalsgaard A2, Bisgaard M2, Frimodt-Møller N3, Slotved HC4.

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Abstract

Streptococcus pneumoniae is the cause of high mortality among children worldwide. Antimicrobial treatment and vaccination are used to control pneumococcal infections. In Ghana, data on antimicrobial resistance and the prevalence of multidrug-resistant pneumococcal clones are scarce; hence, the aim of this study was to determine the antibiogram of S. pneumoniae recovered from Ghanaian children younger than six years of age and to what extent resistances were due to the spread of certain sero- and multilocus sequence typing (MLST) types. The susceptibility of 115 pneumococcal isolates, recovered in a previous study, to six antimicrobials was determined by disk diffusion test. Overall, 90.4% of isolates were intermediate penicillin resistant, 99.1% were trimethoprim resistant, 73.0% were tetracycline resistant, and 33.9% were sulfamethoxazole resistant. Low resistance was recorded for erythromycin (2.6%) and cefotaxime (5.2%). Overall, 72.2% of isolates were resistant to penicillin (I or R) and at least two other antimicrobials. MLST of 20 isolates showing resistance to at least four antimicrobials revealed a high diversity documented by 16 different clones, none of which had previously been associated with multidrug resistance. The resistances found may have emerged due to nonprudent antimicrobial use practices and there is a need to monitor and promote prudent antimicrobial usage in Ghana.

PMID: 26172078 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]