ST of <i>Streptococcus pneumonia</i> Circulating in Burkina Faso before the Introduction of PCV-13, 2013

Introduction: Burkina Faso experiences regular cases of Streptococcus pneumoniae meningitis. As part of the strategy to reduce cases of meningitis, the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-13) has been introduced in the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI). Despite these efforts, there are some cases of pneumococcal meningitis including both vaccine and non-vaccine serotypes. The objective of this study was to describe the pneumococcal sequence types (ST) circulating in Burkina Faso before the introduction of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-13). Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional study that took place from 27th October 2013 to 7th January 2014. S. pneumoniae strains were collected in Burkina Faso and Multi Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) was performed at the Pneumococcal Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the USA (United States of America). MLST consists of 4 steps: amplification, purification, sequencing and interpretative reading of the results. The amplification used 7 primers consisting of sequences of aroe, gdh, gki, recP, spi, xpt, ddl genes. Results: Of 37 strains tested, 10 serotypes were identified. Serotype 1 was prevalent in 48.7% (18/37) followed by serotype 25F in 10.8% (4/37). Serotypes 5 and 12F/12A/12B/44/46 were 8.1% (3/37) each. Serotype 1 contained 5 STs including ST303 24.3% (9/37), ST217 8.1% (3/37) and ST618 8.1% (3/37); followed by serotype 25F with ST105 10.8% (4/37), serotype 5 with ST289 8.1% (3/37) and serogroup 12F/12A/12B/44/46 with ST 989 8.1% (3/37). Conclusion: Pneumococci are characterised by their great variability both in number of serotypes and in ST within the same serotype. Thus, 10 serotypes have been identified. Also, within serotype 1, 5 different STs have been described. These data indicate the complexity of the pneumococcus which is strongly involved in purulent bacterial meningitis at national level. This requires continuous surveillance of pneumococcal meningitis through laboratory capacity building.