An epidemiological study of Haemophilus influenzae at a Brazilian day care center

Abstract

Day care centers are a relatively new phenomenon in Brazil that bring together large numbers of young children susceptible to contagious diseases. Haemophilus influenzae (Hi) is an important infection in the age range of those attending day care centers. In the present study, the carriage rate of Haemophilus influenzae was identified in 38 day care attendees age 6 to 37 months, and 23 staff members, at a day care center in Ribeirão Preto-São Paulo, in 1997. To identify the carriers, two nasopharyngeal swabs were collected; one in July and one in December. The rate of H. influenzae carriers among the children was 77%. Only 2 of 23 staff members (9%) had Hi. Among the children, there were 58 isolates in the two sampling periods; 6 of the Hi were serotype b, 1 was serotype e, and 48 isolates were non-typeable. Two were identified as H. parainfluenzae. One adult had a non-typeable Hi and 1 had H. paraphrohaemolyticus. Three of the 6 children with type B had received a conjugate vaccine against H. influenzae type b, but they still carried this bacterium in the nasopharynx (50%). Forty ribotype patterns were found among the isolates, showing a high exchange rate of nontypeable H. influenzae carriers. The results indicate that, because of the high and changing biotype of Hi carriage, day care centers should be carefully monitored as potential point source of HI disease in the community.

Nasopharyngeal colonization by Haemophilus influenzae in children attending day-care centers, in Ribeirão Preto, State of São Paulo, Brazil

“…The most common colonizing biotypes were type II, I, V and III agreeing exactly with the result of a previous study (5). Recently, in a few studies in DCC in which Hi biotypes were reported, one in Brazil (5), one in France (35) where the most common biotypes for Hi were type II (62.2%), V (18.0%) and I (16.2%), and one in the USA (14), where the most common types were type II (37.0%), III (21.0%), I (13.0%), V (12.0%) matched the results of the present study.…”

“…Previous studies have documented Hi point prevalence colonization rates among various populations to range from 11 to 88% (3,5,9,16,20,31) and most likely depending on differences in the children's hygiene practices, behavior, or antibiotic use. In this study of nasopharyngeal cultures from children < 3 years old attending DCC in Ribeirão Preto-SP, the colonization rates are consistent with the variable rates reported.…”

Prevalence of oropharyngeal colonization by Haemophilus influenzae type b in Iranian children

“…Oropharyngeal carriage of Hib is important in the transmission, pathogenesis and immunologic response [2]. The availability of conjugated capsular Hib vaccine has dramatically reduced the incidence of Hib-induced diseases in North America [3], Europe [4] and more recently in developing countries such as Brazil [5]. In unvaccinated populations, the invasive diseases caused by Hib particularly affect children under 6 years old [2,6].…”

Comparision of Clinical and Demographic Parameters of Bacterial and Viral Meningitis among Children

“…World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the deaths from bacterial meningitis in Europe, America, Africa and South East Asia was, 15,000, 18,000, 20,000 and 73,000 respectively 8 . Each year in USA the incidence of bacterial meningitis is 0.01% cases 9 . The incidence of bacterial meningitis varies from 0.022% to 0.266% in newborns, more common in developing countries 10 .…”