Antibiotic resistance pattern, capsular types, and molecular characterization of invasive isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae in the south of Tunisia from 2012 to 2018.

Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In this study, we sought to analyze serotype distributions, antibiotic resistance, and genetic relationships of 106 clinical invasive pneumococcal isolates recovered in Tunisia between 2012 and 2018, prior to the routine use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV).

Methods: We used multiplex PCR, the disk diffusion method and/or E-test, and multi-locus sequence typing (MLST).