Streptococcus pneumoniae is a major cause of meningitis in children under 5 years in Vietnam, yet few data exist on the molecular characteristics of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) isolates in our region. This work presents characterization of IPD isolates in south Vietnam by Multilocus Sequence Typing (MLST).
Forty-three pneumococcal isolates from cases of meningitis (n=36) or sepsis (n=7) in children under five-years of age from 2008-2018 in Vietnam were serotyped by realtime PCR (for a possible 21 serotypes), subject to MLST and analyzed by goeBURST v1.2.1
MLST analysis on 35 isolates to date identified 24 STs. goeBURST analysis identified 12 Clonal Complexes (CC) and 6 singletons. 74% (n=26) of isolates belonged to CCs related to PMEN clones and other multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains. Common CCs were CC90 (Spain6B-2) and CC236 (Taiwan19F-14) with 6 isolates each, followed by CC320/271 and CC63 (Sweden15A-25) with 5 and 4 isolates, respectively. Serotypes 6A/B, 14, and 19F were common and these belonged to 6, 4, 3 difference CCs, respectively.
There was a high diversity of pneumococcal clones associated with meningitis and sepsis in young children in south Vietnam. Most of the isolates belonged to PMEN clones or MDR strains.