Streptococcal throat carriage in a population of nursery and primary school pupils in Benin City, Nigeria
Abstract
Abstract Background: Group A streptococcus (GAS) is a major cause of mortality in man. Regular disease surveillance can be
achieved through evaluation of throat carriage.
Objectives: To evaluate GAS throat carriage amongst nursery and primary schools pupils in Benin City, Nigeria.
Method: This cross sectional study was carried out between September and November 2011. A multistage random sampling
method was used to recruit the pupils. Throat swabs were obtained for microscopy and Lancefied grouping.
Results: 426 pupils were recruited of which 363(85.2) were in primary and 63(14.8%) in nursery schools. The subjects were aged 2
to 15years and 203(47.7%) were males. Of the 426 pupils, 123 (28.9%) had positive throat swabs for β haemolytic streptococcus
(βHS). None of the isolate was GAS. The isolates were groups C (50.4%), D (38.2%) and G (11.4%).
Conclusion: Although βHS throat carriage rate in this study is high, there was no GAS isolate. This may suggest low prevalence of
GAS related diseases in the community.
Keywords: group A Streptococcus; throat carriage; school children
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This is an open-access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, transform, and build upon the work even, commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author, and the new creations are licensed under identical terms