“…When data from different countries or regions in the same continent were compared, we found great variation in the pneumococcal carriage and penicillin resistance rates. In South America, the colonization rates varied from 10.0% (southeast region of Brazil, 2001) [9] to 66.0% (Quito, Ecuador, 2002) [10] (Table 1); overall penicillin-resistance rates varied from 1.4% (north region, Brazil, 2001) [9] to 49.0% (Fortaleza, Brazil, 2002) [11] and highlevel penicillin resistance rates varied from 0% (Brazil, 2001) [9,12] to 38.8% (Santa Fé, Argentina, 1997) [13] (Table 1). In Asia, high-level penicillin resistance was not detected in Blantyre, Malawi, 1997 [17], on Lombok island, Indonesia, 2001 [18] or in Kumamoto, Japan, 2002 [19], whereas it varied from 26% to 40% in Hanoi, Vietnan, 2002 [20], Hong Kong, China, 2001 [21] and Taipei, Taiwan, 2003 [22] ( Table 2).…”