Streptococcus pneumoniae

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Streptococcus pneumoniae

Life History

Streptococcus pneumoniae is found worldwide. The common host is the human body, in which it often does not cause disease but at other times it can cause diseses in particular, pneumonia. It also causes otitis media, bacteremia, meningitis, peritonitis, and sinusitis. The route by which this organism is spread is from human to human in the form of aerosol droplets. When inside the host the organism’s primary site of pneumococcal colonization is the nasopharynx. From this site it can aspire to the lungs, eventually spread to the blood and traverse the blood-brain barrier to the meninges, once inside the blood it can cause infections throughout the body. Symptoms of the disease include sudden chill, fever, cough, pleuritic pain, or sputum with a red/brown rusty color.

Microbiological characteristics

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a gram-positive coccus. Usually they are found in pairs of cocci, or diplococci, but they may also occur in short chains or singly. When cultured on blood agar they demonstrate alpha hemolysis. They are non motile organisms.

Virulence

Virulence is caused by the chemical composition of the capsule. There are over 90 serotypes of S. pneumoniae which causes great difficulty when trying to develop a vaccine for this bacterium. The capsule interferes with phagocytosis by preventing C3b opsonization of the bacterial cells.

Diseases

S. pneumoniae is the leading cause of pneumonia in all ages. Pneumonia due to this organism is characterized by four stages. In the first stage the lung alveoli fill up with a serous fluid which is thought to be stimulated by the cell wall of the organism. This fluid contains a lot of organisms but little inflammatory cell...

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...for pneumonia, 6 million cases of otitis media, and 60,000 cases of invasive disease, which included 3300 cases of meningitis. Incidence in the U.S. showed geographic variation from 21 to 33 cases per 100,000 people. Interestingly enough, Alaska native adults have an 8 times higher disease rate and Alaskan infants a 4 times higher rate than the benchmark U.S. community. This statistic is indicative of how the organism is spread, because S. pneumoniae is spread by aerosol droplets, from person to person. The fact that Alaskan’s must remain indoors and live in crowded conditions and poor ventilated homes, increases the transmission and therefore the incidence of S. pneumoniae in this area.

Sources Cited:

http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us/healthtips/BCD/StrepPneumo.htm

http://www2.cdc.gov/ncidod/aip/Strep/strep.asp

http://www.bact.wisc.edu/Bact330/lecturespneumo

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