Prevalence of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Pneumonia Patients that Attend Madonna Catholic Hospital Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria

Aim: To determine the prevalence of Streptococcus pnenumoniae in pnenumonia patients attending Madonna Catholic Hospital, Umuahia; Abia State.

Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study on the prevalence of Streptococcus pnenumoniae among patients in Madonna Catholic Hospital, Umuahia. It lasted for a period of three months (September 2019 to January 2020). Standard microbiological techniques were used to evaluate 60 sputum samples collected from pneumonia patients and the modified Kirby-Buar disk diffusion technique was used to test the sensitive pattern of the isolates to some antibiotics.

Results: A total of thirty-three (33) Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates were recovered from sixty (60) sputum samples from pneumonia patients. 17(51%) were gotten from male and 16 (49%) of isolates were gotten from female. The highest frequency of occurrence among the age groups was observed with adults (19-59 years) (34.4%) followed by adolescence (13-18 years) (33.3%), while the least frequency was from those of senior adults (>60) (9.1%). However, the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of the Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates from the sputum samples shows varying degrees of sensitivity and resistance to the antibiotics. From the study, Streptomycin and Cotrimoxazole showed a high percentage of sensitivity against Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates at 78.8% and 72.7% respectively. The highest percentage of resistance was observed with Gentamicin and Tetracycline at 42.4% each.

Conclusion: This study highlights that there was no distinct variation in occurrence of Streptococcus pneumoniae in relation to gender and age. As most patients were hospitalized in separated wards, this suggests a role for local dissemination of this bacterium in the respective wards rather than age or gender specific predilection. This study also suggests that streptomycin and Cotrimoxazole could be a drug of choice in the treatment of pneumonia.