J Korean Pediatr Soc.  2000 Oct;43(10):1323-1329.

Epidemiologic Characteristics of T Serotyping in Relation to the Outbreak of Erythromycin Resistant Streptocccus pyogenes

• Cha SH
• Hwang KJ
• Lee YH

Abstract

PURPOSE: The identification of antigenic specificity of Streptococcus pyogenes using T serotyping is important to understand biologic characteristics of microorganisrns. We would like to disover the association of the occurrence of predominant T type, with possible outbreak of erythromycin resistant Streptococcus pyogenes in this country, which has been documented since the late 1990s.
METHODS
Throat swab cultures were taken from a total of 1,294 normal school children(Subject A) in two different geographical areas. A total of 92 strains(Subject B) were obtained from the patients with group A streptococcal infections from Jan. 1998 to Dec. 1998. All strains were serotyped with T protein antisera.
RESULTS
The distribution of T12 in Uljin increased from 4.2%(1996) to 45.7%(1998). T4 increased from 6.3% to 20.0%. Thirty-eight out of 92 strains were resistant to erythromycin. Twenty-seven out of 41 strains(T12) were multidrug resistant to erythromycin, clindarnycin, and tetracycline.
CONCLUSION
We can see the sudden increase in T12 strains, one of the strains that are resistant to erythromycin in 1998, compared with previous years. T protein serotyping could be epidemiologically useful as a screening methods for detecting erythromycin resistant group A streptococci in hospitals where the routine antibiotic sensitivity test dose not examin for streptococci.

Keyword

Streptococcus pyogenes; Erythromycin; T serotype; Antibiotic sensitivity test; Epidemiology

MeSH Terms

Epidemiology
Epitopes
Erythromycin*
Humans
Immune Sera
Mass Screening
Pharynx
Population Characteristics
Serotyping*
Streptococcal Infections
Streptococcus pyogenes
Tetracycline
Epitopes
Erythromycin
Immune Sera
Tetracycline