Epidemiology and antibiotic susceptibility of nasopharyngeal S-pneumoniae and H-influenzae isolated from children attending day-care centers in 3 french departments

Objective: The authors had for aim to identify risk factors promoting the carriage of beta-lactamase producing H. influenzae, and pneumococci with decreased susceptibility to penicillin (PDSP). Method. In 1999, 2565 children attending nurseries in 3 french departments were randomly included in this study. Each child was submitted to a nasopharyngeal swab for microbial analysis. A total of 1150 H. influenzae strains (44.9%) including 48.1% beta-lactamase+ and 1260 pneumococci (49.2%) including 64.7% of PDSP. In addition to seasonal and regional variations, a multivariate analysis indicated that carriage of H. influenzae was preferentially found in children aged 18 months or more while beta-lactamase producing strains,, pneumococci, and PDSP were more isolated from children under 18 months. Comments: Previous hospitalization and/or antibiotic therapy were also found to be correlated with an elevated rate of PDSP isolation. The risk due to this association increased with the number of antibiotic courses and varied according to the elapsed time after the latest prescription. (C) 2002 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.