In Alice Springs and its vicinity, a single nasal swab was collected from 282 Australian aborigines in May 1981 to determine nasal carriage rates of pneumococci. Each swab was inoculated on blood agar and on gentamicin blood agar. The carriage rates were 89% in children, 39% in adolescents and 34% in adults. In all, 27 serotypes of pneumococci were met with and 15 (4%) of subjects yielded two or more serotypes. In children, types 23, 19, 6, 22 and 6 were predominant (in that order), whereas type 3 was commonest in older subjects. Approximately 25% children and 5% adults yielded drug-insensitive pneumococci. Resistance to benzylpenicillin, tetracycline and co-trimoxazole was met with, resistant pneumococci showed five resistance patterns and belonged to nine serotypes, predominantly types 19 and 23. All isolates were sensitive to chloramphenicol, erythromycin, lincomycin and rifampicin. The carriage rate of drug-insensitive pneumococci was 100-fold higher amongst children sampled than in non-aboriginal children in Australia.

SUMMARYAmongst 1267 healthy children 6 months to 4-5 years of age in Adelaide, the pneumococcal carriage rate from a single nasal swab sampling was 29% in the period 1980-1. Of 269 children, sampled monthly on five occasions, 91 % carried a pneumococcus on one or more occasions: 55 % carried a single type, 33 % carried two types, 2 % carried three types and 1 % carried four types; 18 % carried a pneumococcus on either 4 or 5 occasions. The commonest types encountered were types 6, 19 and 23 in that order, and these three types constituted 57 % of the total: other common types ( > 5 % of the total) were types 14, 15 and 11, and the six commonest types constituted 77 % of the total. Of these, types 6, 14, 19 and 23 commonly cause systemic disease in children; on the other hand types 11 and 15 cause disease infrequently. The number of strains showing antimicrobial drug resistance was low: on quantitative testing 0 7 % of 291 isolates examined showed relative resistance to benzylpenicillin and 07 % were resistant to tetracycline; 10-9 % of 230 isolates examined showed resistance to co-trimoxazole; dual or multiple drug resistance was not detected, and all isolates tested were susceptible to chloramphenicol, erythromycin, lincomycin and rifampicin.

A substantial proportion of all patients admitted to a pediatric hospital during winter represent a potential source of infection, and strict infection control measures should be enacted to limit the spread of these infections.

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A substantial proportion of all patients admitted to a pediatric hospital during winter represent a potential source of infection, and strict infection control measures should be enacted to limit the spread of these infections.