Serotype 19A and 6C Account for One-Third of Pneumococcal Carriage Among Belgian Day-Care Children Four Years After a Shift to a Lower-Valent PCV

Background Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) effectively reduce infection and asymptomatic carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine serotypes. In 2016, Belgium replaced its infant PCV13 program by a 4-year period of PCV10. Concomitantly, S. pneumoniae serotype carriage was monitored together with the carriage of other nasopharyngeal pathogens in children attending day-care centers. Methods From 2016 to 2019, a total of 3459 nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained from children aged 6-30 months. Culture and qPCR were used for the identification of S. pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Mora... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Ekinci, Esra
Van Heirstraeten, Liesbet
Willen, Laura
Desmet , Stefanie
Wouters , Ine
VERMEULEN, Helene
Lammens, Christine
Goossens, Herman
Van Damme, Pierre
Verhaegen, Jan
Beutels, Philippe
Theeten, Heidi
Malhotra-Kumar, Surbhi
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
Verlag/Hrsg.: OXFORD UNIV PRESS
Schlagwörter: children / day-care center / PCV10 / PCV13 / pneumococcal carriage / serotypes
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28879492
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : http://hdl.handle.net/1942/39176

Background Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) effectively reduce infection and asymptomatic carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine serotypes. In 2016, Belgium replaced its infant PCV13 program by a 4-year period of PCV10. Concomitantly, S. pneumoniae serotype carriage was monitored together with the carriage of other nasopharyngeal pathogens in children attending day-care centers. Methods From 2016 to 2019, a total of 3459 nasopharyngeal swabs were obtained from children aged 6-30 months. Culture and qPCR were used for the identification of S. pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Moraxella catarrhalis, and Staphylococcus aureus and for serotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility assessment of S. pneumoniae strains. Results S. pneumoniae colonization was frequent and stable over the study years. H. influenzae and M. catarrhalis were more frequently carried (P < .001) than S. pneumoniae, by, respectively, 92.3% and 91.0% of children. Prevalence of all PCV13 serotypes together increased significantly over time from 5.8% to 19.6% (P < .001) and was attributable to the increasing prevalence of serotype 19A. Coincidently, non-vaccine serotype 6C increased (P < .001) and the overall pneumococcal non-susceptibility to tetracycline and erythromycin. Non-susceptibility to cotrimoxazole decreased (P < .001). Conclusions The switch to a PCV program no longer covering serotypes 19A, 6A, and 3 was associated with a sustained increase of serotypes 19A and 6C in healthy children, similarly as in invasive pneumococcal disease. This resulted in a re-introduction of the 13-valent conjugate vaccine during the summer of 2019. ; The study is supported by research grants from Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Research Grant 1150017N and 1523518N), and an investigator-initiated research grant from Pfizer. We would like to thank all members of the expert advisory board (H. Goossens, R. Cohen, A. Finn, K. Van Herck, D. Tuerlinckx) for their contribution to the study protocol and interpretation of the results; ...