Risk factors for nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in healthy Turkish children after the addition of heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) to the national vaccine schedule.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) on nasopharyngeal (NP) carriage rates of Streptococcus pneumoniae in healthy Turkish children. The study was conducted on 1101 healthy Turkish children between 1 month and 18 years of age. The median and mean ages of the children were 25 months (1 month-18 years) and 45.7±49.6 months, respectively. S. pneumoniae was isolated in 241/1101 (21.9%) children included in the study. According to multivariate analysis, being <5 years of age, presence of a child attending a daycare center, recovery from respiratory infection within the last month, low income level of the family, and presence of more children in the family were found to be the risk factors for the NP pneumococcal carriage. The carriage rate of NP pneumococci in healthy children was not influenced by PCV7 in Turkey.