Screening for early-onset invasive group B Streptococcal disease in neonates in an Irish hospital (2001–2014): a retrospective audit

Abstract

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is the most common cause of early-onset neonatal sepsis and meningitis. In babies with no clinical suspicion of infection, who are at risk of early-onset invasive disease based on maternal risk factors, blood cultures are taken to detect bacteraemia. In our institution, lumbar punctures are performed in infants with clinical signs of sepsis but not in infants who are well at the time of screening. Between 2001 and 2014, there were 112,361 live births weighing >500 g, of whom 13,959 (12.4%) infants had a blood culture taken on the first or second day of life, and 1971 (14.1%) of these infants had lumbar punctures on these first two days of life. Fifty-three cases of early-onset GBS disease were identified. Only three patients with invasive GBS disease had no clinical suspicion for sepsis at the time of testing. Thus, the number of blood cultures taken to detect one case of GBS bacteraemia in an infant who is well at the time of testing was 3996.

Early-onset sepsis in term infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units (2011–2016)

“…Comparative studies within this field are limited by different and relatively short study periods, varying study populations, and different culture types [ 2 , 11 , 12 , 15 ]. While we only included term infants, several studies included preterm or extreme preterm infants [ 11 , 20 , 21 ], which may explain the predominance of Gram-negative rods previously reported [ 12 ]. Consistent with our findings, a recent study by Singh et al reported GBS to be the most prevalent cause of EOS in term infants admitted to the NICU, accounting for 62% of cases [ 11 ].…”

MLST Application in Analysis of Relationship between Group B Streptococcus Resistance Gene and Induction Resistance in Shanghai, China

“…In addition to the severe situation of drug resistance, GBS infection is bound to become a substantial risk to the obstetric diseases associated to pregnant women and newborn children [16]. Additionally, there were significant differences in drug resistance, molecular and serotype of GBS between diseases categories, specimen types or regions [17,18]. MLST of GBS isolates from different countries indicated that only limited numbers including ST1, ST10, ST17, ST19 and ST23 were associated with colonizing or invasive isolates [19].…”