Anne L. Wyllie (United States of America)
Yale School of Public Health
Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases
As compared to the gold standard nasopharyngeal swab, my research has identified saliva as a reliable sample type for the sensitive detection of Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) in all age groups, particularly in healthy older adults, and more recently, SARS-CoV-2 in persons suspected of COVID-19. Improved detection of the pneumococcus has unveiled hidden reservoirs in older adults which holds importance when new vaccination strategies for preventing pneumococcal disease are being considered. For COVID-19, sampling saliva can alleviate many of the bottlenecks encountered in the mass testing strategies required to control continuing outbreaks. In an effort to address many of these issues, our lab validated and optimized saliva for SARS-CoV-2 detection and developed SalivaDirect: a simple, scalable and importantly, cost-effective method to help alleviate SARS-CoV-2 testing demands. Our SalivaDirect Initiative at the Yale School of Public Health remains devoted to providing public health guidance, advancing saliva diagnostics, and enabling the safe re-opening of communities worldwide.

Presenter of 1 Presentation

 Conference Calendar

O091 - SOURCES OF ACQUISITION OF PNEUMOCOCCAL CARRIAGE AMONG OLDER ADULTS IN THE COMMUNITY (ID 221)

Session Name
0760 - Parallel Session 11: New Perspectives on Pneumococcal Colonization (ID 65)
Session Type
Parallel Session
Date
Wed, 22.06.2022
Session Time
15:05 - 16:35
Room
Grand Ballroom West
Presenter
Lecture Time
16:00 - 16:10

Abstract

Background

Despite widespread use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, particularly in children, an important burden of pneumococcal disease remains in older adults. Acquisition and transmission rates of pneumococcus between older adults have not been well characterized.

Methods

Between October 2020-June 2021, couples living in the Greater New Haven Area were enrolled if both individuals were aged ≥60 years and no individuals under the age of 60 lived in the household. Saliva samples and questionnaires were obtained every 2 weeks for a period of 10 weeks (six time-points total). Following culture-enrichment, extracted DNA was tested using qPCR for pneumococcus-specific sequences piaB and lytA. Individuals were considered positive when Ct-values for piaB were <40.

Results

We collected 567 saliva samples from 95 individuals (48 household pairs). Of those, 9.2% samples tested positive for pneumococcus, representing 28/95 (29%) individuals and 20/48 (43%) households. Ten (68%) carriers tested positive at multiple time-points, with two (7%) individuals colonized at all six time-points. For five households, both members were identified as carriers at either the same time-point or on consecutive time-points. Individuals who had regular contact with school-aged children had higher carriage prevalence (17%). There were instances where both household members were colonized and did not report contact with children, but the numbers were too small to formally evaluate the rate of within-household transmission.

Conclusions

We found that 29% of older adults carried pneumococcus during the 10-week study period. While prevalence was particularly high among those who had contact with school-aged children, carriage was not limited to this group.

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