To examine the association between bacterial-viral co-occurrence in the nasopharynx and the risk of community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in young children living in resource-limited settings.
A case-control study was conducted between January and December 2017 in Moshi, Tanzania. Children 2-59 months with CAP and healthy controls were enrolled. RSV and Influenza A/B were detected with a standardized polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method, and a simplified real-time quantitative PCR method, without sample pre-processing, was developed to detect bacterial pathogens in nasopharyngeal samples.
A total of 109 cases and 324 healthy controls were enrolled. Co-occurrence of H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae was linked with higher odds of CAP (aOR=3.2, 95% CI=1.1-9.5). The majority of the H. influenzae isolated in cases and controls (95.8%) were non-typeable. Of the viruses examined, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) was most common (n=31, 7.2%) in cases and controls. Children with RSV had 8.4 times higher odds to develop pneumonia than healthy children (aOR=8.4, 95%CI= 3.2 – 22.1).
H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae were primarily co-detected in patients and were associated with CAP. The high prevalence of non-typeable H. influenzae might be a sign of replacement as a consequence of Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccination.

Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

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