[Pneumococcal Meningitis in Spanish Children: Incidence, Serotypes and Antibiotic Resistance. Prospective and Multicentre Study]

Objective: To determine the incidence, as well as the implicated serotypes and patterns of antibiotic resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae meningitis in Spanish children.

Material And Method: We performed a prospective, multicenter study in five Autonomous Communities (Catalonia, Galicia, Madrid, Navarre and the Basque Country) for 1 year (1 February 2000 31 January 2001). All children aged 0-14 years with pneumococcal meningitis from all the hospitals in the Autonomous Communities studied were included. Diagnosis was based on clinical findings and isolation of S. pneumoniae in the cerebrospinal fluid/blood using routine methods or polymerase chain reaction. Serotyping was performed using the guellung reaction and/or immunoblotting and susceptibility to antibiotics was evaluated by the technique of agar dilution. The pediatric population aged 0-14 years in the Autonomous Communities studied comprises 2,290,304 children.

Results: Fifty-two cases were identified. One patient was aged less than 2 months old, 25 (48 %) were aged 2-12 months, and 12 patients (23 %) were aged 12-24 months. The annual incidence per 100,000 children aged between 1 and 2 years was 17.75 cases (95 % CI: 11.59 26.01) and 8.39 cases (95 % CI: 4.67 15.79) respectively, and that for children in the first 2 and 5 years of life was 13.13 (95 % CI: 9.29 18.02) and 6.29 (95 % CI: 4.57 8.,45) cases respectively. Nearly half the strains isolated (47.6 %) showed reduced sensitivity to penicillin. The most frequent serotype was 19F (12 cases [28.6 %]). Eighty percent of the isolated serotypes were included in the formula of the heptavalent conjugate vaccine.

Conclusions: The incidence of pneumococcal meningitis in children from five Spanish Autonomous Communities is high, nearly twice that found in a prior retrospective studied performed in the same population 1-3 years previously. Almost all the isolated serotypes were included in the heptavalent conjugate vaccine. Half the strains showed reduced sensitivity to penicillin.