Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun 3;17(6):1628-1634.
doi: 10.1080/21645515.2020.1849516. Epub 2021 Jan 15.

Pneumococcal carriage in children with COVID-19

Kubra Aykac  1 , Yasemin Ozsurekci  2 , Burcu Ceylan Cura Yayla  1 , Kubra Evren  3 , Sibel Lacinel Gurlevik  2 , Pembe Derin Oygar  2 , Mihriban Yucel  3 , Ayse Esra Karakoc  3 , Alpaslan Alp  4 , Ali Bulent Cengiz  2 , Mehmet Ceyhan  2
Affiliations

Pneumococcal carriage in children with COVID-19

Kubra Aykac et al. Hum Vaccin Immunother. .

Abstract

Background: SARS-CoV-2 is the new virus, and Streptococcus pneumoniae is one of the most important pathogens affecting humans. However, we do not yet know whether these microorganisms interact. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the relationship between Streptococcus pneumoniae and SARS-CoV-2 in pediatric patients.Methods: This study was conducted retrospectively by means of medical records of pediatric patients who were tested for SARS-CoV-2 between March 11 and June 04, 2020, in the University of Health Sciences, Ankara Educating and Training Hospital and Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine.Results: We evaluated 829 pediatric patients for S. pneumoniae and SARS-CoV-2 from their nasopharyngeal specimen. Of 115 children positive for SARS-CoV-2, 32.2% had a positive S. pneumoniae test, whereas of 714 children negative for SARS-CoV-2, 14.1% had a positive S. pneumoniae test (p < .01). We compared patients with positive vs. negative SARS-CoV-2 tests according to S. pneumoniae positivity There were no statistically significant differences in terms of gender, underlying disease, fever, cough, leukocytosis, lymphopenia, increased CRP, increased procalcitonin, findings of chest x-ray, severity of disease, and treatment.Conclusion: The nasopharyngeal S. pneumoniae carriage rate in patients with COVID-19 was higher than in non-infected children, while S. pneumoniae carriage did not affect the course of COVID-19 disease. Pneumococcal vaccination is significant, such that we do not know the outcomes of increased pneumococcal carriage for the upcoming months of pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; S. pneumoniae; children.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The number of NP swaps during the study period
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The relationship between NP Streptococcus pneumoniae carriage and the severity of children
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
The NP pneumococcal carriage rate in each age groups
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. World Health Organization . Pneumococcal diseases. 2015. November 16. [accessed 2015 Nov 26]. https://www.who.int/biologicals/vaccines/pneumococcal/en/
    1. Zhu X, Ge Y, Tao Wua T, Zhao K, Chen Y, Wu B, Zhu F, Zhu B, Cui L.. Co-infection with respiratory pathogens among COVID-2019 cases. Virus Res. 2020;285:198005. doi:10.1016/j.virusres.2020.198005. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shrestha S, Foxman B, Daniel M, Weinberger DM, Viboud C, Rohani P. Identifying the interaction between influenza and pneumococcal pneumonia using incidence data. Sci Transl Med. 2013;5:191ra84. doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.3005982. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rudd JM, Ashar HK, Chow VTK, Teluguakula N. Lethal synergism between influenza and Streptococcus pneumoniae. J Infect Pulm Dis. 2016;2. doi:10.16966/2470-3176.114. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Brealey JC, Sly PD, Young PR, Chappell KJ. Viral bacterial co-infection of the respiratory tract during early childhood. FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2015;362:fnv062. - PubMed