Etiology of acute lower respiratory tract infection in Central Australian Aboriginal children.

Background: Aboriginal children in central Australia have attack rates for acute lower respiratory tract infection (ALRI) that are similar to those in developing countries. Although mortality rates are much lower than in developing countries, morbidity is high and ALRI is still the leading cause of hospitalization. However, there are no data on the etiology of ALRI in this population.

Bacterial colonization of the nasopharynx predicts very early onset and persistence of otitis media in Australian aboriginal infants.

Otitis media (OM) develops in the first months of life and persists throughout childhood in many rural Aboriginal children. We have followed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal infants from birth to determine the relationship of the early onset of OM to nasopharyngeal colonization with respiratory pathogens. Aboriginal infants were colonized with multiple species of respiratory bacteria (Moraxella catarrhalis, Haemophilus influenzae, Streptococcus pneumoniae) at a rate of 5% per day and the timing of colonization predicted the onset of persistent OM in individual Aboriginal infants.

Upper airway carriage by Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae in Australian aboriginal children hospitalised with acute lower respiratory infection.

When nasopharyngeal secretions from 171 Australian Aboriginal children hospitalized with acute lower respiratory tract infections (ALRI) were cultured selectively for Streptococcus pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae, 136 (79.5%) and 151 (88.3%) children yielded 166 and 254 isolates of S.

Streptococcal update. A microbiology perspective.

The streptococci remain important human pathogens despite it being nearly 60 years since sulphonamides were introduced. Rheumatic fever and post glomerulonephritis are common diseases in the Aboriginal community, and a new invasive disease, toxic shock-like syndrome, is also caused by Group A Streptococcus. Group B, first described over 50 years ago in obstetric wards remains the primary neonatal pathogen despite attempts to eliminate this organism from the genital tract of the carrier mother.

An outbreak of serotype 1 Streptococcus pneumoniae infection in central Australia.

An outbreak of serotype 1 Streptococcus pneumoniae infection involving both adults and children occurred in central Australia during the winter months of 1991. Eighteen patients, mainly Aboriginal men, presented with culture-positive serotype 1 bacteraemic pneumonia. In this group, 11 of 12 adults for whom medical records were available were alcohol dependent.