title: Spread of the Streptococcus pneumoniae Taiwan19F-14 clone among children in Greece.
abstract: Serotype 19F pneumococci were a leading cause of infections among children in Athens, Greece during 2001-2006. In total, 143 19F isolates were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and 38 isolates representing the main PFGE types were also characterised by multilocus sequence typing. A diversity of distinct strains belonging to sequence types 236, 1035, 274, 172 and 319 were identified, but multidrug-resistant isolates related to the Taiwan(19F)-14 clone (ST236) constituted 76.9% of the isolates. Spread of the Taiwan(19F)-14 clone explains, in part, the high incidence of antibiotic resistance observed among pneumococci reported recently from Athens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mavroidi
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Paraskakis
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pangalis
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kirikou
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Charisiadou
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Athanasiou
authors.forename: P T
authors.initials: PT
authors.lastname: Tassios
authors.forename: L S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Tzouvelekis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D015373:Bacterial Typing Techniques; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D024901:Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D006115:Greece / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D011008:Pneumococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000382:microbiology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013296:Streptococcus pneumoniae / Q000145:classification* / Q000302:isolation & purification*