Investigation of upper respiratory carriage of bacterial pathogens among university students in Kampar, Malaysia

The carriage of bacterial pathogens in the human upper respiratory tract (URT) is associated with a risk of invasive respiratory tract infections, but the related epidemiological information on this at the population level is scarce in Malaysia. This study aimed to investigate the URT carriage of 'Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae' and 'Pseudomonas aeruginosa' among 100 university students by nasal and oropharyngeal swabbing. The presence of 'S. aureus, K. pneumoniae' and 'P. aeruginosa' was assessed via swab culture on selective media and PCR on the resulting isolates. For 'S. pneumoniae, H. influenzae' and 'N. meningitidis', their presence was assessed via multiplex PCR on the total DNA extracts from chocolate agar cultures. The carriage prevalence of 'H. influenzae, S. aureus, S. pneumoniae, K. pneumoniae, N. meningitidis' and 'P. aeruginosa' among the subjects was 36%, 27%, 15%, 11%, 5% and 1%, respectively, by these approaches. Their carriage was significantly higher in males compared to females overall. The 'S. aureus, K. pneumoniae' and 'P. aeruginosa' isolates were also screened by the Kirby-Bauer assay, in which 51.6% of S. aureus were penicillin-resistant. The outcomes from carriage studies are expected to contribute to informing infectious disease control policies and guidelines.