Conclusion
Our findings showed high antibiotic resistance rates of the strains causing pneumococcal pneumonia, mostly macrolide resistance, among unvaccinated children.
Methods
A total of 126 clinical pnemococcal strains isolated from unvaccinated children less than 5 years of age with pneumonia at the Nghe An province, Vietnam between Nov 2019 and Mar 2021. All strains were identified using conventional microbiological method, VITEK® 2 Compact system, specific PCR and sequencing. The serotypes and antimicrobial resistance patterns of pnemococcal strains were determined using the multiplex PCR assays and VITEK® 2 Compact system.
Results
The results showed that, eight different pneumococcal serotypes were identified. The most common serotypes were 19F (67.46%), followed by 23F (10.32%), 19A (9.52%), 6A/B (3.17%), 15A (2.38%), 9V (3.17%), 11A (1.59%) and 14 (0.80%), respectively. More than half of the pneumococcal strains were non-susceptible to penicillin. The resistance rate to ceftriaxone and cefotaxime were 41.3% and 50.8%. The percentage of pneumococci strains resistant to clarithromycin, azithromycin, erythromycin, cotrimoxazole, tetracyclin, and clindamycin were more than 93% of all strains. All pneumococcal serotypes were highly resistant to clarithromycin, azithromycin, erythromycin, cotrimoxazole, and clindamycin.