Foundation:

For more than a decade, the political leadership of the country, the health system and the biotechnology industry have given top priority to the Cuban development project of a heptavalent conjugate vaccine candidate against pneumococci. The Pediatric Hospital of Cienfuegos is one of the sentinel centers for the introduction of this vaccine.

Objective:

to describe the clinical, epidemiological and laboratory characteristics in patients diagnosed with invasive pneumococcal disease.

Methods:

a descriptive study with patients younger than five years with a diagnosis of invasive pneumococcal disease. The variables analyzed were: Age, sex, form of presentation, days prior admission with symptoms, location of isolation, hospitalization in intensive care unit, month of admission and isolated serotype.

Results:

male infants predominated (60%). The predominant presentation was pneumonia, with 77.7% of the cases and 66 isolations by blood cultures. The largest number of cases was concentrated in the winter months, and most of the isolations were reported in serotypes 14, 19A and 19F. A total of 62 patients were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.

Conclusion:

invasive pneumococcal disease has a high incidence in children younger than five years, and pneumonia is the most frequent presentation with predominance of Serotype 14.

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