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

Background and objective: The prevalence of Streptococcus pneumoniae and resistance to antibiotics has become a public health problem in different countries of the world. This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of Streptococcus pneumonia nasal carriage among children, and their antibiotics susceptibility profiles. Methods: A nasal swab was obtained from 1092 healthy children aged from 6 to13 years in Erbil Parks, Kurdistan region, Iraq. The swabs were cultured on appropriate culture media to isolate Streptococcus pneumonia and to examine their susceptibility to antibiotics. The antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed using the standard disk-diffusion method. Results: Streptococcus pneumonia 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 resistance among isolates of Streptococcus pneumonia from the nasal carriage of children in our region.