7th Call - Dr. Eric Sampane-Donkor
Project Title: Epidemiology of Pneumococcal Carriage among HIV Positive Children in Accra, Ghana.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Eric Sampane-Donkor (Department of Microbiology, UGMS, University of Ghana,)
Email Address: esampane-donkor@chs.ug.edu.gh / ericsdon@hotmail.com
Award Amount: GHC 24,961.00
Project Status: On-going
Summary:
HIV positive children have about forty times greater risk of invasive pneumococcal disease compared to healthy children. In sub-Saharan Africa, very little is known about pneumococcal disease in relation to HIV patients. With the recent availability of routine pneumococcal vaccination is sub-Saharan Africa, there is an urgent need for the relevant epidemiological data on risk populations of pneumococcal disease such as HIV positive individuals, in order to inform vaccination policies. The pneumococcus is carried as a normal flora of the upper respiratory tract and carriage is the precursor for development of pneumococcal disease, and is also responsible for pneumococcal transmission from person-to-person. Additionally, recent pneumococcal vaccines are based on reducing pneumococcal carriage, hence incidence of pneumococcal disease. Thus, pneumococcal carriage studies represent a suitable model for understanding host-pathogen interaction of the pneumococcus as well as evaluating vaccine coverage of this important human pathogen. The aim of the proposed study is to investigate the epidemiology of pneumococcal carriage among HIV positive children <5years in Ghana. This is a cross sectional study involving 100 subjects recruited at the Fevers Unit of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Nasopharyngeal specimens collected from the study subjects would be cultured for the pneumococcus, and the isolated organisms would be subjected to antibiotic susceptibility testing, serotyping and multilocus sequence typing. Epidemiological data on demographic and clinical features would be collected from the study subjects. Expected outcomes of the study include identification of risk factors of pneumococcal carriage and evaluation of pneumococcal vaccination impact among HIV positive children.