Outbreak of streptococcus pneumoniae disease in children in Baghdad city

Abstract EN

Eighty-two children with Streptococcus pneumoniae diseases were admitted to central hospital of children in Baghdad city, during the period from January 2004 to December 2004.

The age of children ranged from one day to ten years.

The types of diseases are follows : pneumonia 24 (29.2 %), urinary tract infection 21 (25.6 %) bacteremia 18 (21.9 %), Otitis media 15 (18.2 %) and meningitis 4 (4.8 %).

Of the 82 cases studied (32.9 %) were less than 2 years.

From the subjets 48 (58.5 %) were male patients and 34 (41.4%) female patients, most of cases were occurred in winter months.

The most effective antibiotics are ciprofloxacin and cefotaxime while Ampicillin and penicillin were less efficaious against Streptococcus pneumoniae.

The major of isolates were have capsule and hemolytic activity (95.1 %) (96.3 %) respectively while only 40 (48.7 %) from isolates were p-lactamase producing.