A retrospective analysis of invasive Streptococus pneumoniae infection in Trinidad

ABSTRACT

A retrospective analysis of culture-positive cases of S. pneumoniae infection is reported. Over 40 percent of patients were > 5 years old while patients > 50 years accounted for 28 percent of cases. Meningitis (44 percent) was the most common clinical presentation followed closely by pneumonia (31 percent). Many patients, however, were described as having sepsis and/or bacteraemia with an identifiable focus of infection. The commonest underlying predisposing condition was HIV infection though there were no identifiable risk factors in the majority of patients. Mortality from invasive pneumococcal disease was epecially high in elderly patients. In this study, all S. pneumoniae isolates for which there were antibiotic sensitivity data were penicillin and/or amoxycillin sensitive.(AU)