Outbreak of Streptococcus pneumoniae disease in children in Baghdad city

Eighty – two children with Streptococcus pneumoniae diseases were admitted to central hospital of children in Baghdad city , during the period from January 2004 to December 2004 . The age of children ranged from one day to ten years . The types of diseases are follows : pneumonia 24 (29.2 %) , urinary tract infection 21 (25.6 %) bacteremia 18 (21.9%) , Otitis media 15 (18.2%) and meningitis 4 (4.8 %) . Of the 82 cases studied ( 32.9 %) were less than 2 years . From the subjets 48 (58.5 %) were male patients and 34 (41.4%) female patients , most of cases were occurred in winter months . The most effective antibiotics are ciprofloxacin and cefotaxime while Ampicillin and penicillin were less efficaious against Streptococcus pneumoniae . The major of isolates were have capsule and hemolytic activity (95.1 %) (96.3 %) respectively while only 40 (48.7%) from isolates were β-lactamase producing .