Comparison of Streptococcus pneumoniae nasopharyngeal colonization, serotype-specific and protein-specific antibody and cytokine levels in young children prior to, during and post COVID-19 pandemic

Department

Research

Additional Department

Medicine

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Vaccine

Abstract

BACKGROUND: We studied changes in pneumococcal epidemiology and immunology in young children at pre-COVID, during-COVID and post-COVID time-frames.

METHODS: Pneumococci were cultured from nasopharynx and density semi-quantified at six healthy child visits, age 6-36 months, and during acute otitis media (AOM). Serum antibody levels were measured by ELISA. Nasopharyngeal cytokine/chemokine levels were measured by rt-PCR. Differences between pre-COVID (2017 Mar-2019 July), during-COVID (2020 March-2022 March) and post-COVID (2022 April-2023 July) were analyzed.

RESULTS: At healthy visits, pneumococcal detection was significantly lower during-COVID (21 %) vs. pre-COVID (28 %) and returned to 27 % post-COVID. Nasopharyngeal pneumococcal detection during AOM was not different during the three time frames (47-49 %), and density was consistently higher during AOM compared to healthy visits. Multiple vaccine and non- vaccine serotypes were detected during all time-frames. During-COVID, antibody levels to serotype 6A were lower than pre or post-COVID when measured at 24 months old. Increasing antibody levels occurred across the three time-frames for serotypes 22F and 33F. Pneumococcal- specific protein IgG levels did not differ across the three time-frames. Nasopharyngeal cytokine/chemokine levels during-COVID were lower.

CONCLUSIONS: During the COVID-19 pandemic pneumococcal nasopharyngeal colonization, antibody and cytokine levels in young children differed compared to before and after the pandemic.

First Page

126954

DOI

10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.126954

Volume

54

Publication Date

4-30-2025

Medical Subject Headings

Humans; Nasopharynx (microbiology, immunology); Streptococcus pneumoniae (immunology, isolation & purification); COVID-19 (epidemiology, immunology); Infant; Child, Preschool; Cytokines (immunology); Female; Male; Pneumococcal Infections (immunology, epidemiology, microbiology); Antibodies, Bacterial (blood, immunology); Serogroup; Otitis Media (microbiology, immunology); SARS-CoV-2; Carrier State (epidemiology)

PubMed ID

40058284

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