Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae in Romanian children before the introduction of the pneumococcal conjugated vaccination into the national immunization programme: a national, multi-centre, cross-sectional observational study.

Objectives: We analysed the distribution of vaccine and non-vaccine Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes and the antimicrobial susceptibility of pneumococcal strains isolated from healthy Romanian children.

Methods: A multi-centre cross-sectional study was performed in four counties to evaluate carried strains of S. pneumoniae isolated from 2000 children aged 0-5 years.