No abstract

Introduction: Studies on the carriage rate of beta-hemolytic streptococci among children form an important component of public health practice to prevent disease complications such as rheumatic fever/rheumatic heart disease, nephritis, and other local or systemic infections. Methodology: Throat swabs collected from asymptomatic schoolchildren were inoculated into appropriate media for isolation of beta-hemolytic streptococci. They were identified by standard biochemical methods and sero-grouped. Antibiotic sensitivity was evaluated using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method. Results and Conclusion: Beta-hemolytic streptococci were isolated from 106 (7.7%) out of the 1,384 throat swabs and Group F was the predominant sero-group isolated. The highest resistance observed among all the beta-hemolytic streptococci was to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.

Our results indicate that incident hypertension cases are largely attributable to the habit of tobacco use and alcohol consumption. Therefore, changing these selected lifestyle factors needs to be prioritized as a major strategy for reducing incidence of hypertension in our population.

Our IEC module created awareness about risk of hypertension associated with high salt intake and could reduce dietary salt intake and BP.