[Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes in Cuba and progression of resistance to penicillin].

INTRODUCTION

since 2006 in Cuba, there has been difficult to determine the actual incidente of bacterial meningitis and other invasive diseases caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae, as a result of the low percentage of isolation and identification of this agent in the domestic microbiology lab network.

OBJECTIVE

to warn of the need of revitalizing the active surveillance of invasive, epidemiological and microbiological pneumoccocic diseases, mainly meningitis and pneumoniae in the phase prior to vaccination.

METHODS

a comparison was made on the circulation of capsulary serogroups/serotypes and the invasive infection-causing S. pneumoniae isolates susceptibility to penicilline in two periods: 1994-2006 and 2007-2009.

RESULTS

the most frequent serogroups were 3, 6, 7, 9, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 23; however, in the second period, it was observed that others not contained in the available conjugate vaccines (serogrup 15) and associated to antimicrobial resistance (serotype 5) were circulating. On the other hand, increased resistance to penicilline was evident.

CONCLUSIONS

it is required to study a more representative number of isolates in order to assure high effectiveness with the incorporation of some S. pneumoniae conjugate vaccines in the Cuban infant vaccination schedule. This will also allow duly assessing increased resistance to penicilline and adopting therapeutical guidelines suited to the Cuban setting.