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. 2024 Jan 11;19(1):e0297041. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297041

Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae among children <5 years of age in Indonesia prior to pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction

Dodi Safari 1,*, Wa Ode Dwi Daningrat 1,2, Jennifer L Milucky 3, Miftahuddin Majid Khoeri 1, Wisiva Tofriska Paramaiswari 1, Wisnu Tafroji 1, Korrie Salsabila 1, Yayah Winarti 1, Amin Soebandrio 1, Sri Rezeki Hadinegoro 4, Ari Prayitno 4, Lana Childs 5, Fabiana C Pimenta 3, Maria da Gloria Carvalho 3, Tamara Pilishvili 3,¤
Editor: Jose Melo-Cristino6
PMCID: PMC10783721  PMID: 38206916

Abstract

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) prevent nasopharyngeal colonization with vaccine serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae, leading to reduced transmission of pneumococci and stronger population-level impact of PCVs. In 2017 we conducted a cross-sectional pneumococcal carriage study in Indonesia among children aged <5 years before 13-valent PCV (PCV13) introduction. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected during visits to community integrated health service posts at one peri-urban and one rural study site. Specimens were analyzed by culture, and isolates were serotyped using sequential multiplex polymerase chain and Quellung reaction. Antibiotic susceptibility was performed by broth microdilution method. We enrolled 1,007 children in Gunungkidul District, Yogyakarta (peri-urban) and 815 in Southwest Sumba, East Nusa Tenggara (rural). Pneumococcal carriage prevalence was 30.9% in Gunungkidul and 87.6% in Southwest Sumba (combined: 56.3%). PCV13 serotypes (VT) carriage was 15.0% in Gunungkidul and 52.6% in Southwest Sumba (combined: 31.8%). Among pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common VT were 6B (16.4%), 19F (15.8%), and 3 (4.6%) in Gunungkidul (N = 323) and 6B (17.6%), 19F (11.0%), and 23F (9.3%) in Southwest Sumba (N = 784). Factors associated with pneumococcal carriage were age (1–2 years adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.9, 95% CI 1.4–2.5; 3–4 years aOR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1–2.1; reference <1 year), other children <5 years old in the household (aOR 1.5, 95% CI 1.1–2.0), and presence of ≥1 respiratory illness symptom (aOR 1.8, 95% CI 1.4–2.2). Overall, 61.5% of the pneumococcal isolates were non-susceptible to ≥1 antibiotic class and 13.2% were multi-drug non-susceptible (MDNS) (non-susceptible to ≥3 classes of antibiotics). Among 602 VT isolates, 73.9% were non-susceptible and 19.9% were MDNS. These findings are critical to establish a pre-PCV13 carriage prevalence and demonstrate the complexity in evaluating the impact of PCV13 introduction in Indonesia given the wide variability in the carriage prevalence as shown by the two study sites.

Introduction

Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a leading cause of bacterial pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis among children worldwide [1]. In 2015, an estimated 9.2 million cases of pneumococcal infections and 318,000 associated deaths occurred in children <5 years of age worldwide; of these 4.4 million pneumococcal cases and 88,500 deaths occurred in Southeast Asia [2]. Prior to introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs), children <2 years of age were at the highest risk of serious pneumococcal infections, and six to 11 serotypes were responsible for ≥70% of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) burden globally [3]. Introduction of PCVs in many countries led to significant reductions in IPD among vaccinated children, as well as unvaccinated older populations through indirect (or herd) effects [46].

To date, 165 countries have introduced PCVs into their routine infant immunization schedule [7]. Prior to 2017, 10-valent PCV (PCV10) and the 13-valent PCV (PCV13) were available in Indonesia as part of a private service in hospitals. In 2017, the government of Indonesia introduced PCV13 in a limited geographic area, Lombok Island in the West Nusa Tenggara province, as a demonstration project using a schedule of two primary doses at two and three months of age followed by a booster at 12 months (2+1 schedule) [8]. In 2021, PCV13 was introduced as a part of national program and launched in select districts in East and West Java with nationwide introduction starting in 2022.

Pneumococcal colonization is a precursor of infection, and PCVs reduce vaccine serotype pneumococcal colonization among vaccinated children, which leads to decreased transmission of vaccine serotypes in communities [9]. Nasopharyngeal colonization studies can provide information on pneumococcal serotypes circulating in the community and help document the impact of PCV immunization programs among vaccinated children (direct effects) and unvaccinated children through reduced transmission of vaccine serotypes from vaccinated population groups (indirect effects) [10, 11]. In 2017, prior to PCV introduction, we conducted a pneumococcal carriage study to evaluate nasopharyngeal colonization with S. pneumoniae among children <5 years of age in two distinct communities in Indonesia. We evaluated overall rates of pneumococcal carriage, factors associated with pneumococcal carriage, serotype distribution, and antibiotic susceptibility of S. pneumoniae strains. The findings of this evaluation will provide baseline data to evaluate the potential impact of PCVs in Indonesia.

Methods

Study design and population

We conducted a cross-sectional survey of nasopharyngeal pneumococcal colonization among children <5 years of age between February–May 2017 in two distinct geographic regions of Indonesia: Southwest Sumba in East Nusa Tenggara, a rural area in the East region, and Gunungkidul in Yogyakarta, a peri-urban area in the West region. Gunungkidul district, Yogyakarta province, has an estimated total population of 770,880 in 2022, with 46,958 (6%) children <5 years of age. Southwest Sumba district in the province of East Nusa Tenggara has an estimated total population of 308,106 in 2022, with 41,334 (13%) children <5 years of age. The district of Southwest Sumba is primarily comprised of rural sub-districts with less access to health services, clean water, and education. Although parts of Gunungkidul district were also categorized as rural by Statistics Indonesia, generally, the district has better access to health services, clean water, and education compared to Southwest Sumba [12, 13].

Study documents were reviewed and approved by Eijkman Institute Research Ethics Commission (Protocol No. 104) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Institutional Review Board (Protocol 6940). Written informed consent from the parent/guardian of each enrolled child was obtained.

Data and sample collection

We enrolled children <5 years of age presenting for preventive care at community integrated health service posts (posyandu). Children were not eligible to participate if the parent/guardian identified the child as unwell or the child was in obvious distress, the parent/guardian was not conversant in Bahasa, the official language of Indonesia, or the parent/guardian did not provide informed consent. Trained staff interviewed parents/guardians to collect information on demographics, household exposures to smoke, recent illness episodes, and recent antibiotic use. Vaccination history was obtained from official vaccination cards (mother-child health book) or records kept at the posyandu.

Nasopharyngeal specimens were collected by trained medical staff using nylon flocked swabs [Ultra minitip pediatric (COPAN; Cat. No. 516CS01)] for children <1 years old and flexible minitip (COPAN; Cat. No. 503CS01) for children ≥1 years old. Swabs were placed into 1.0 ml skim milk tryptone glucose glycerol (STGG) medium and stored at -80°C. Specimens were tested at the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology in Jakarta.

Streptococcus pneumoniae identification, serotyping, and antimicrobial susceptibility testing

For NP swab analysis, 200μl of swab-inoculated STGG media was transferred to 5.0 ml Todd Hewitt broth containing 0.5% yeast extract (THY), and 1ml of rabbit serum and incubated at 35–37°C for six hours. Cultured broth was plated on sheep blood agar and incubated in 5% CO2 at 35–37°C. After 18–24 hours of incubation, plates were examined for the appearance of alpha-hemolytic colonies resembling streptococci. Pneumococci were identified by susceptibility to optochin and bile solubility. S. pneumoniae isolates were serotyped by conventional multiplex polymerase chain reaction (cmPCR) based testing [1417] followed by Quellung reaction (Staten Institute, Denmark). Non-typeable isolates were confirmed as S. pneumoniae by real-time PCR, targeting lytA gene [18].

Antimicrobial susceptibility to moxifloxacin, penicillin, levofloxacin, meropenem, azithromycin, tetracycline, ertapenem, erythromycin, cefuroxime, amoxicillin/clavulanic Acid 2:1, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (SXT), ceftriaxone, linezolid, vancomycin, cefotaxime, clindamycin, cefepime, and chloramphenicol was determined by broth microdilution method using commercial minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) plate (STP6F Trek Diagnostics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA) according to manufacturer’s instructions. Isolates were classified as susceptible, intermediate, or resistant according to the 2022 Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) guidelines [19]. For the penicillin interpretive categories, we used the parenteral non-meningitis and meningitis MIC breakpoints (S1 File). Similarly for ceftriaxone and cefepime, we used the non-meningitis and meningitis MIC breakpoints (S1 File). Isolates intermediate or resistant to ≥1 antibiotic were classified as non-susceptible (NS). Multi-drug non-susceptibility (MDNS) was defined as NS (i.e., intermediate or resistant) to ≥3 classes of antibiotics [19]. When classifying isolates as NS or MDNS, we used the non-meningitis breakpoints for penicillin, ceftriaxone, and cefepime.

Data analysis

The sample size was estimated to allow for 90% power to detect a statistically significant (α = 0.05) 50% decline in the proportion of children colonized with vaccine serotypes in a post-PCV13 introduction carriage survey among children aged <5 years old, assuming vaccine coverage of at least 80%. A nasopharyngeal pneumococcal carriage study done in Lombok in 2012 found that approximately 46% of children aged <5 years were colonized with S. pneumoniae with approximately 50% of those carrying PCV13 serotypes. Under the above assumptions, we estimated the required sample size to be 324 children <1 year of age and 986 children 1–4 years of age. The required sample size was adjusted during the first few weeks of data collection based on the differences in the preliminary overall pneumococcal carriage prevalence observed in each study site.

We calculated pneumococcal carriage prevalence among children by study site (Gunungkidul and Southwest Sumba), age group (<1 year, 1–2 years, 3–4 years), and other factors potentially associated with pneumococcal colonization. The vaccine serotypes were those included in PCV13 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 7F, 9V, 14, 18C, 19A, 19F, and 23F). S. pneumoniae isolates were deemed to be non-typeable if a serotype could not be determined by cmPCR and Quellung but showed positive results for lytA gene.

We used logistic regression models to obtain crude odds ratios (ORs) and adjusted ORs (adjusted by study site) to evaluate factors associated with pneumococcal carriage prevalence. We applied a multivariable logistic regression model to evaluate factors independently associated with pneumococcal carriage; a stepwise backwards elimination process was applied to the full model including all covariates, and variables were removed from the model when 0.05 significance level was not met. Data analyses were performed using Stata (version 15.0) and SAS (version 9.4) software. P values <0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results

Participant characteristics

Between February–May 2017, we enrolled 1,822 children <5 years of age (Gunungkidul: 1,007; Southwest Sumba: 815); of these, 449 (24.6%) were <1 year of age, 762 (41.8%) were 1–2 years of age, and 611 (33.5%) were 3–4 years of age. Characteristics of enrolled children by study site are presented in Table 1. A higher proportion of children in Southwest Sumba as compared to those from Gunungkidul lived in households with >6 members per household (44.8% vs. 12.9%, P<0.0001) and with other children <5 years of age (31.8% vs. 13.6%, P<0.0001), had reported having cough (53.3% vs. 14.5%, P<0.0001), runny nose (67.7% vs. 21.9%, P<0.0001), difficulty breathing (12.8% vs. 0.1%, P<0.0001), or fever (25.8% vs. 5.8%, P<0.0001) in the last 24 hours, and had taken antibiotics during the past three days (7.6% vs. 5.1%, P = 0.02). We found that a higher proportion of children attended daycare in Gunungkidul (30.7%) compared to Southwest Sumba (17.8%, P<0.0001). The primary fuel source used for cooking in Gunungkidul was liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or kerosene (62.5%) whereas in Southwest Sumba almost all households used wood only (96.1%, P<0.0001). In both study sites, nearly all households cooked indoors (Gunungkidul: 97.3%; Southwest Sumba: 98.2%).

Table 1. Participant characteristics and S. pneumoniae carriage prevalence overall and by study site.

Characteristic Gunungkidul Southwest Sumba Total P value (participant characteristic by study site)
Tested n (%) S. pneumoniae detected n (%) Tested n (%) S. pneumoniae detected n (%) Tested n (%) S. pneumoniae detected n (%)
Study site 1007 311 (30.9) 815 714 (87.6) 1822 1025 (56.3)
Sex
     Male 515 (51.1) 166 (32.2) 417 (51.2) 361 (86.6) 932 (51.2) 527 (56.5) 0.99
    Female 492 (48.9) 145 (29.5) 398 (48.8) 353 (88.7) 890 (48.8) 498 (56.0)
Age (year)
    <1 year old 243 (24.1) 51 (21.0) 206 (25.3) 175 (85.0) 449 (24.6) 226 (50.3) 0.04
    1–2 years old 401 (39.8) 144 (35.9) 361 (44.3) 324 (89.8) 762 (41.8) 468 (61.4)
    3–4 years old 363 (36.0) 116 (32.0) 248 (30.4) 215 (86.7) 611 (33.5) 331 (54.2)
Presence of other children <5 years old
    Yes 137 (13.6) 55 (40.1) 259 (31.8) 231 (89.2) 396 (21.7) 286 (72.2) <0.0001
    No 870 (86.4) 256 (29.4) 556 (68.2) 483 (86.9) 1426 (78.3) 739 (51.8)
Household size
    2–3 109 (10.8) 33 (30.3) 64 (7.9) 59 (92.2) 173 (9.5) 92 (53.2) <0.0001
    4–6 768 (76.3) 235 (30.6) 386 (47.4) 336 (87.0) 1154 (63.3) 571 (49.5)
    >6 130 (12.9) 43 (33.1) 365 (44.8) 319 (87.4) 495 (27.2) 362 (73.1)
Primary fuel
    LPG/kerosene only 629 (62.5) 198 (31.5) 27 (3.3) 23 (85.2) 656 (36.0) 221 (33.7) <0.0001
    Wood only 180 (17.9) 61 (33.9) 783 (96.1) 687 (87.7) 963 (52.9) 748 (77.7)
    Wood with any other source 198 (19.7) 52 (26.3) 5 (0.6) 4 (80.0) 203 (11.1) 56 (27.6)
Cooking place
    Inside the house 980 (97.3) 298 (30.4) 800 (98.2) 702 (87.8) 1780 (97.7) 1000 (56.2) 0.23
    Outside the house 27 (2.7) 13 (48.1) 15 (1.8) 12 (80.0) 42 (2.3) 25 (59.5)
Breastfeeding status
    Never breastfed 25 (2.5) 9 (36.0) 16 (2.0) 13 (81.3) 41 (2.3) 22 (53.7) 0.10
    Currently breastfed 436 (43.3) 125 (28.7) 317 (38.9) 276 (87.1) 753 (41.3) 401 (53.3)
    Ever breastfed 546 (54.2) 177 (32.4) 482 (59.1) 425 (88.2) 1028 (56.4) 602 (58.6)
Daycare attendance
    Yes 309 (30.7) 99 (32.0) 145 (17.8) 128 (88.3) 454 (24.9) 227 (50.0) <0.0001
    No 698 (69.3) 212 (30.4) 670 (82.2) 586 (87.5) 1368 (75.1) 798 (58.3)
Exposure to cigarette smoke in the household
    Yes 711 (70.6) 212 (29.8) 558 (68.5) 485 (86.9) 1269 (69.6) 697 (54.9) 0.32
    No 296 (29.4) 99 (33.4) 257 (31.5) 229 (89.1) 553 (30.4) 328 (59.3)
Current illness (in the last 24 hours)
    Cough 146 (14.5) 54 (37.0) 434 (53.3) 393 (90.6) 580 (31.8) 447 (77.1) <0.0001
    Runny nose 221 (21.9) 95 (43.0) 552 (67.7) 500 (90.6) 773 (42.4) 595 (77.0) <0.0001
    Difficulty breathing 1 (0.1) 0 (0.0) 104 (12.8) 95 (91.3) 105 (5.8) 95 (90.5) <0.0001
    Fever (in the last 3 days) 58 (5.8) 19 (32.8) 210 (25.8) 187 (89.0) 268 (14.7) 206 (76.9) <0.0001
Hospital admission in the past 3 months
    Yes 23 (2.3) 9 (39.1) 26 (3.2) 23 (88.5) 49 (2.7) 32 (65.3) 0.23
    No 984 (97.7) 302 (30.7) 789 (96.8) 691 (87.6) 1773 (97.3) 993 (56.0)
Any antibiotics used
    During the past 3 days 51 (5.1) 16 (31.4) 62 (7.6) 57 (91.9) 113 (6.2) 73 (64.6) 0.02
    During the past 30 days 120 (11.9) 34 (28.3) 123 (15.1) 109 (88.6) 243 (13.3) 143 (58.8) 0.05

S. pneumoniae carriage and factors associated with pneumococcal carriage rates

The overall prevalence of S. pneumoniae carriage was 56.3% (1,025/1,822). We found the carriage prevalence was 87.6% and 30.9% among children in Southwest Sumba (714/815) and Gunungkidul (311/1,007) (P<0.0001), respectively (Table 1). Prevalence of S. pneumoniae carriage was higher in children aged 1–2 years (61.4%; 468/762) than children <1 year (50.3%; 226/449) or 3–4 years (54.2%; 331/611) (Table 1). Pneumococcal carriage prevalence was higher in children who lived with >6 household members (73.1%; 362/495) compared to those children residing in households with 4–6 (49.5%; 571/1,154) or 2–3 (53.2%; 92/173) household members (Table 1), and in households with other children <5 years of age (72.2%; 286/396 vs. 51.8%; 739/1,426). Children who did not attend daycare also had a slightly higher carriage prevalence than those who did (58.3%; 798/1,368 vs. 50.0%; 227/454); however, when stratified by site there was no difference in the carriage prevalence by daycare attendance (Gunungkidul: 32.0%; 99/309 vs. 30.4%; 212/698; Southwest Sumba: 88.3%; 128/145 vs. 87.5%; 586/670). Carriage prevalence was higher among children from households using wood as primary fuel (77.7%; 748/963) compared to those using natural gas (33.7%; 221/656) (Table 1). Children reporting cough, runny nose, difficulty breathing, or fever in the past 24 hours had a higher carriage prevalence than those without these symptoms (Table 1).

After adjusting for study site, age (1–2 years adjusted OR = 1.9, 95% CI = 1.4–2.5; 3–4 years adjusted OR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.1–2.1), presence of other children <5 years old (adjusted OR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.1–2.0), and presence of ≥1 symptom of respiratory illness (adjusted OR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.4–2.2) were significantly associated with pneumococcal carriage. In a multivariate analysis, the odds of pneumococcal carriage varied significantly by several characteristics: children aged 1–2 years had a 1.7-fold-increased odds compared to children aged <1 year (P = 0.0008), households with the presence of other children <5 years old had a 1.9-fold-increased odds compared to those without (P<0.0001), households with 4–6 persons had a 0.8-fold-decreased odds compared to households with 2–3 persons (P = 0.012), households using wood only as the primary fuel source had a 4.8-fold-increased odds (P<0.0001) while households using wood with any other source had a 0.8-fold-decreased odds (P<0.0001) compared to households using LPG or kerosene only, exposure to cigarette smoke in the household was associated with a 0.8-fold-decreased odds (P = 0.034), and the presence of ≥1 symptom of respiratory illness was associated with a 2.8 fold-increased odds (P<0.0001) (Table 2).

Table 2. Factors associated with S. pneumoniae colonization in children <5 years of age.

Characteristic Overall
Crude OR (95% CI) p value Adjusted by study site OR (95% CI)a p value Multivariate OR (95% CI)b p value
Sex
    Female 1.0 (0.8–1.2) 0.800 1.0 142.8–1.2) 0.763
Age (year)
    <1 year Ref Ref ref
    1–2 years old 1.6 (1.2–2.0) 0.0002 1.9 (1.4–2.5) <0.0001 1.7 (1.3–2.2) 0.0008
    3–4 years old 1.2 (0.9–1.5) 0.216 1.5 (15.1–2.1) 0.006 1.3 (1.0–1.7) 0.962
Presence of other children <5 years old
    Yes 2.4 (1.9–3.1) <0.0001 1.5 (1.1–2.0) 0.012 1.9 (1.4–2.5) <0.0001
Household size
    2–3 Ref Ref ref
    4–6 0.9 (0.6–1.2) 0.365 0.9 (0.6–1.3) 0.620 0.8 (0.5–1.1) 0.012
    >6 2.4 (1.7–3.4) <0.0001 1.0 (0.6–1.5) 0.864 1.1 (0.7–1.7) 0.167
Primary fuel
    LPG/kerosene only Ref Ref ref
    Wood Only 6.8 (5.5–8.5) <0.0001 1.1 (0.8–1.6) 0.470 4.8 (3.8–6.2) <0.0001
    Wood with any other source 0.8 (0.5–1.1) 0.105 0.8 (0.5–1.1) 0.158 0.8 (0.5–1.1) <0.0001
Cooking place
    Inside the house 0.9 (0.5–1.6) 0.666 0.6 (0.3–1.3) 0.192
Breastfeeding status
    Never breastfed Ref Ref
    Currently breastfed 1.0 (0.5–1.8) 0.960 0.9 (0.4–1.9) 0.743
    Ever breastfed 1.2 (0.7–2.3) 0.533 1.0 (0.5–2.2) 0.940
Daycare attendance
    Yes 0.7 (0.6–0.9) 0.002 1.1 (0.8–1.4) 0.554
Exposure to cigarette smoke in the household
    Yes 0.8 (0.7–1.0) 0.083 0.8 (0.7–1.1) 0.152 0.8 (0.6–1.0) 0.034
Current illness (in the last 24 hours)
    Presence of ≥1 symptom of respiratory Illness 4.5 (3.7–5.5) <0.0001 1.8 (1.4–2.2) <0.0001 2.8 (2.2–3.4) <0.0001
Hospital admission in the past 3 months
    Yes 1.5 (0.8–2.7) 0.198 1.3 (0.6–2.7) 0.440
Any antibiotics used
    During the past 3 days 1.5 (1.0–2.2) 0.065 1.2 (0.7–1.9) 0.470
    During the past 30 days 1.1 (0.9–1.5) 0.383 0.9 (0.7–1.3) 0.753

OR: odds ratio

aOdds ratio adjusted by study site.

bStepwise backwards elimination process was applied to the full model including all covariates, and variables were removed from the model when 0.05 significance level was not met.

Serotype distribution

A total of 1,107 S. pneumoniae isolates were obtained from 1,025 children colonized with pneumococcus; 784 (70.8%) isolates were obtained from Southwest Sumba and 323 (29.2%) from Gunungkidul. We identified 81/1,025 children (7.9%) colonized with >1 S. pneumoniae strain (80 with two strains and one with three strains). Among these children, 35/81 (43.2%) were co-colonized with a non-typeable strain and a vaccine serotype or non-vaccine serotype, 21/81 (25.9%) with two vaccine serotypes, 18/81 (22.2%) with a vaccine and non-vaccine serotype, 6/81 (7.4%) with two non-vaccine serotypes, and 1/81 (1.2%) with two vaccine serotypes and one non-vaccine serotype. Overall, the proportion of children colonized with at least one vaccine serotype was 31.8% (54.4% of isolates, n = 602); vaccine serotype carriage was 52.6% (57.1% of isolates, n = 448) in Southwest Sumba and 15.0% (47.7% of isolates, n = 154) in Gunungkidul (S1 and S3 Figs). A higher proportion of children 1–2 years of age (37.1%, 57.9% of isolates) were colonized with a vaccine serotype than children <1 year of age (26.5%, 49.8% isolates) or children 3–4 years of age (29.1%, 52.5% of isolates) (P = 0.0001) (S2 and S3 Figs). In Southwest Sumba, vaccine serotype carriage was higher in children 1–2 years of age (60.9%, 51.1% of isolates) than children <1 year (46.1%, 21.9% of isolates) and 3–4 years of age (46.0%, 27.0% of isolates) (P = 0.0001) (S3 Fig). In Gunungkidul, vaccine serotype colonization rates were the highest among children 3–4 years of age (17.6%, 42.2% of isolates) compared to the other two age groups (<1 year: 9.9%, 15.6% of isolates; 1–2 years: 15.7%, 42.2% of isolates) (P = 0.03) (S3 Fig). Among the 1,107 pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common vaccine serotypes were 6B (17.3%), 19F (12.4%), and 23F (7.8%), and the most common non-vaccine serotypes were 6C (5.0%), 11A (4.0%), and 34 (3.1%). In Gunungkidul, among the 323 pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common vaccine serotypes were 6B (16.4%), 19F (15.8%), and 3 (4.6%), and the most common non-vaccine serotypes were 6C (11.1%), 34 (6.8%), and 15C (3.4%) (Fig 1). In Southwest Sumba, among the 784 pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common vaccine serotypes were 6B (17.6%), 19F (11.0%), and 23F (9.3%), and the most common non-vaccine serotypes were 11A (5.1%), 13 (2.7%), and 6C (2.4%) (Fig 1).

Fig 1. Serotype distribution of Streptococcus pneumoniae Isolates in Gunungkidul and Southwest Sumba, Indonesia.

Fig 1

*Cross-protection is expected from 6A antigen in PCV13 [45].

Antibiotics susceptibility of S. pneumoniae

All isolates were susceptible to moxifloxacin, levofloxacin, ertapenem, vancomycin, cefotaxime, and cefepime when using the non-meningitis breakpoints (Table 3). We found that 49.7%, 43.9%, 23.3%, 20.8% of isolates were resistant to penicillin (meningitis breakpoints only), tetracycline, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, and chloramphenicol, respectively (Table 3).

Table 3. Antibiotic susceptibility of pneumococcal Isolates (n = 1,107) obtained from children <5 years of age.

Susceptibility Category
Antibiotic Class S I R
n % n % n %
Carbapenems
Ertapenem 1101 99.5 6 0.5 0 0.0
Meropenem 1031 93.1 47 4.2 29 2.6
Cephalosporins
Cefepime
    Non-meningitis breakpoints 1060 95.8 47 4.2 0 0.0
    Meningitis breakpoints 1012 91.4 48 4.3 47 4.2
Cefotaxime 1080 97.6 27 2.4 0 0.0
Ceftriaxone
    Non-meningitis breakpoints 1051 94.9 55 5.0 1 0.1
    Meningitis breakpoints 1016 91.8 35 3.2 56 5.1
Cefuroxime 1011 91.3 3 0.3 93 8.4
Fluoroquinolones
Levofloxacin 1107 100.0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Moxifloxacin 1102 99.5 5 0.5 0 0.0
Folate Pathway Antagonists
Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole 681 61.5 168 15.2 258 23.3
Glycopeptides
Vancomycin 1107 100.0 0 0.0 0 0.0
Lincosamides
Clindamycin 1058 95.6 1 0.1 48 4.3
Macrolides
Azithromycin 1017 91.9 0 0.0 90 8.1
Erythromycin 1014 91.6 3 0.3 90 8.1
Oxazolidinones
Linezolida 1105 99.8 0 0.0 0 0.0
Penicillins
Amoxicillin/Clavulanic Acid 2:1 1065 96.2 15 1.4 27 2.4
Penicillin
    Non-meningitis breakpoints 1056 95.4 44 4.0 7 0.6
    Meningitis breakpoints 557 50.3 0 0.0 550 49.7
Phenicols
Chloramphenicol 877 79.2 0 0.0 230 20.8
Tetracyclines
Tetracycline 616 55.6 5 0.5 486 43.9

S: susceptible; I: intermediate; R: resistant

aTwo isolates were considered non-susceptible (NS) (≥4) by the 2022 Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI); CLSI does not provide an interpretive category for intermediate or resistant [19].

Of 1,107 isolates, 61.5% were determined to be NS to ≥1 antibiotic, and by study site, NS was 63.1% (495/784) in Southwest Sumba and 57.6% (186/323) in Gunungkidul (Table 4). Overall NS to ≥1 antibiotic ranged from 56.5–65.4% by age group. In total, 73.9% of the 602 vaccine serotype isolates were NS to ≥1 antibiotic (80.5% in Southwest Sumba and 71.7% in Gunungkidul) (Table 4). By age group, 74.6% of vaccine serotype isolates among children <1 year of age, 76.5% in children 1–2 years of age, and 69.4% in children 3–4 years of age were NS to ≥1 antibiotic. Approximately half of non-vaccine serotype isolates were NS to ≥1 antibiotic; this proportion was higher in Southwest Sumba (52.3%) than in Gunungkidul (37.8%). Among the 445 vaccine serotype isolates NS to ≥1 antibiotic, the most common serotypes were 6B (166/445; 37.3%), 19F (102/445; 22.9%), and 19A (48/445; 10.8%).

Table 4. Non-susceptibility and multi-drug non-susceptibility of vaccine and non-vaccine serotype pneumococcal isolates by study site and age group (N = 1107)a.

NS to one or more antibioticb MDNSc
Vaccine serotype Non-vaccine serotype Overalld Vaccine serotype Non-vaccine serotype Overalld
n/N % n/N % n/N % n/N % n/N % n/N %
Total 445/602 (73.9) 177/376 (47.1) 681/1107 (61.5) 120/602 (19.9) 18/376 (4.8) 147/1107 (13.2)
Study site
    Gunungkidul 124/154 (80.5) 51/135 (37.8) 186/323 (57.6) 56/154 (36.4) 4/135 (3.0) 63/323 (19.5)
    Southwest Sumba 321/448 (71.7) 126/241 (52.3) 495/784 (63.1) 64/448 (14.3) 14/241 (5.8) 84/784 (10.7)
Age group
    <1 year 91/122 (74.6) 42/92 (45.7) 149/245 (60.8) 24/122 (19.7) 2/92 (2.2) 29/245 (11.8)
    1–2 years 225/294 (76.5) 78/159 (49.1) 332/508 (65.4) 56/294 (19.0) 10/159 (6.3) 70/508 (13.8)
    3–4 years 129/186 (69.4) 57/125 (45.6) 200/354 (56.5) 40/186 (21.5) 6/125 (4.8) 48/354 (13.6)

NS: non-susceptibility; MDNS: multi-drug non-susceptibility

aVaccine serotypes were those included in PCV13 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 7F, 9V, 14, 18C, 19A, 19F, and 23F). S. pneumoniae isolates were deemed to be non-typeable if a serotype could not be determined by cmPCR and Quellung but showed positive results for lytA gene. Non-vaccine serotypes were the remaining serotypes (i.e., not included in PCV13 or deemed non-typeable).

bIsolates with intermediate or resistant to ≥1 antibiotic were classified as NS.

cMDNS was defined as NS to ≥3 classes of antibiotics.

dThe sum of vaccine and non-vaccine serotypes are not equal to the overall NS or MDNS since non-typeable pneumococcal isolates were not included in the table.

MDNS was found in 13.3% of the pneumococcal isolates (147/1,107), and 19.9% of vaccine serotype isolates (120/602). the SXT, tetracyclines, and macrolides were the classes most commonly resistant among MDNS isolates. MDNS in vaccine serotypes varied by study site (Gunungkidul: 36.4%; Southwest Sumba: 14.3%) and ranged from 19.0% to 21.5% by age group (Table 4). Overall, <5% of non-vaccine serotypes were found to be MDNS. Among the 120 MDNS vaccine serotype isolates, the most common serotypes were 19F (70/120; 58.3%), 6B (22/120; 18.3%), and 19A (13/120; 10.8%). The antibiotic susceptibility of pneumococcal isolates by serotype (overall and by site) are summarized in S2 and S3 Files.

Discussion

We conducted a nasopharyngeal colonization survey among community dwelling children <5 years of age prior to PCV13 introduction in Indonesia and found 56.3% of the children were colonized with S. pneumoniae and 31.8% were colonized with serotypes covered by PCV13. We found a significant difference in the overall (Southwest Sumba = 87.6% vs. Gunungkidul = 30.9%) and PCV13 serotype (Southwest Sumba = 52.6% vs. Gunungkidul = 15.0%) carriage between the peri-urban and rural study sites. These study findings suggest the introduction of PCV13 has the potential to provide large benefits in protecting children against pneumococcal infection and supports the decision made by the Indonesian government to introduce PCV13 into the routine childhood vaccination schedule. PCV13 use in Indonesia started with a demonstration program in 2017 covering two provinces (West Nusa Tenggara and Bangka Belitung) [20], with a broader scale introduction launched in select districts of East and West Java in 2021. Nationwide introduction started in September 2022 [21].

This study was designed as a baseline survey to allow for the evaluation of PCV13 impact on vaccine serotype carriage after widespread introduction of the vaccine. Colonization rates with vaccine serotype strains were higher in Southwest Sumba (52.6% carriage rate; 57.1% of all pneumococcal isolates) than in Gunungkidul (15.0% carriage rates; 47.7% of isolates). The proportion of vaccine serotypes out of pneumococcal strains identified in this study was similar to previous studies from different regions in Indonesia. A cross-sectional study conducted in the Central Lombok Regency in 2012 among healthy children 2–60 months of age found 56% of the pneumococcal strains carried were covered by PCV13 [22]. In a 2016 study conducted in three regions (Bandung, West Java; Central Lombok Regency; Padang, West Sumatra) of Indonesia, 46.3% of the isolates identified from children aged 12–24 months in all three study sites belonged to PCV13 serotypes with regional variation identified (36–58%) [23]. More recently, a study conducted in 2019 among children <5 years of age in South Kalimantan found 46% of the carried pneumococcal strains to be PCV13 serotypes [24].

The most common vaccine serotypes identified in our study (6B, 19F, 23F, 19A, and 14) were also identified in previous surveys in Indonesia. Several carriage studies conducted in different regions of Indonesia between 1997 and 2019 found these serotypes to be commonly carried among children <5 years of age [22, 23, 25, 26] and children <12 years old with HIV infection [27]. Our study identified S. pneumoniae serotype 1 (n = 1) and serotype 4 (n = 4), which have not previously been identified from nasopharyngeal samples in children in Indonesia. While S. pneumoniae serotype 1 is a common cause of invasive disease in children, it is rarely isolated from the nasopharynx and is not a commonly carried serotype in children [28, 29]. In general, the distribution of most common vaccine serotypes found in this study and previous studies in Indonesia were similar to those found in many countries prior to PCV introduction and suggests PCV13 introduction will have an impact on disease caused by these commonly circulating serotypes in children [10, 30, 31].

We identified serotypes 6C, 11A, 34, 13, 15B, and 15C as the common non-vaccine serotypes in both study sites. Specifically, serotype 6C was the most common non-vaccine serotype identified in Gunungkidul (11.1% of 323 isolates) and serotype 11A was the most common non-vaccine serotype in Southwest Sumba (5.1% of 784 isolates). Evidence of cross-reactivity between serotypes 6C and 6A has been documented and suggests that a cross-protection against disease caused by serotype 6C from a 6A antigen in 10-valent PCV (PCV10) and PCV13 should be expected [32]. Following introduction of PCVs, other countries have reported increases in the circulation of other non-vaccine serotypes. A series of pneumococcal carriage studies conducted in Fiji among children ≤6 years of age and their caregivers before and after PCV10 introduction found serotype replacement was beginning to emerge three years after vaccine introduction among infants and Indigenous children [33]. The impact of PCV13 introduction was also evaluated among children 12–23 months old and infants 5–8 weeks old in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) in a pre- and post-PCV13 introduction pneumococcal carriage study [34]. Two years after vaccine introduction, there were early signs of serotype replacement with an increasing trend in non-PCV13 serotype carriage, though it was not significant from the baseline study. When evaluating carriage of individual serotypes, there was a significant increase in carriage of serotype 23A in both infants and children, which has been found to increase post-PCV introduction in invasive and non-invasive infections in other settings [35, 36]. Mongolia, compared to Fiji and Lao PDR, also introduced PCV using a 2+1 schedule and found evidence of serotype replacement in carriage one-year post-introduction [37]. In children 12–23 months of age, there was a 1.6-fold increase in non-PCV13 serotype carriage, and more specifically, a significant increase in carriage of serotypes 15A and 23A. In 5–8-week-old infants, there was no change in the non-PCV13 serotype carriage prevalence, though there was a significant increase in carriage of serotypes 15A and 34. Several countries in Europe, the U.S., and Australia have reported an increasing incidence of disease caused by serotypes 8, 9N, 15A, and 23B after PCV13 introduction [38]. Continued monitoring of the circulating serotypes will be needed following PCV13 introduction to determine whether replacement with non-vaccine serotype occurs as has been observed in other countries. New higher valency conjugate vaccines covering 15 and 20 pneumococcal serotypes have been approved in the United States and other countries, and these vaccines are expected to provide additional benefits to prevent disease caused by some of the strains contributing to replacement disease [3942].

The prevalence of overall S. pneumoniae carriage among children <5 years of age in Southwest Sumba in the East region of Indonesia was almost three times higher than in Gunungkidul in the West region of Indonesia (Southwest Sumba = 87.6% vs. Gunungkidul = 30.9%). Previous colonization studies from different regions in Indonesia also demonstrated a wide geographic variability in the overall pneumococcal carriage prevalence. In the East region of Indonesia, three studies in children <5 years of age conducted in Lombok Island showed the rates of S. pneumoniae carriage were 48%, 46%, and 50% in 1997, 2012, and 2016, respectively [15, 18, 22]. Meanwhile in the West region of Indonesia, the prevalence rates of S. pneumoniae in children were 35% in Padang, West Sumatera (2016), 43% in Semarang, Central Java (2010), 46% in Jakarta (2012), and 64% in Bandung, West Java (2016) [1820]. A systematic review of pneumococcal carriage among children in low and lower-middle-income countries found overall carriage rates ranged from 27–91% in pre-PCV studies depending on the country and health status of the study population [43]. The carriage prevalence in Southwest Sumba was much higher than the reported overall carriage prevalence among children <5 years of age found in other countries in the Southeast Asia (38.0–62.8%) and Western Pacific regions (31.4–68.2%) [43], and was closer to the prevalence reported in other parts of the world including in Pakistan (77.2%), India (74.7% for children with clinical pneumonia), and Mozambique (84.5% for children without pneumonia and 80.5% for children with and without HIV) [10, 28, 30, 44]. These geographic differences between the two study sites (Southwest Sumba rural vs. Gunungkidul peri-urban) in overall pneumococcal carriage rates are likely due to socio-demographic factors, such as crowding, exposure to other young children in the household, and exposure to indoor air pollution [45].

The difference in socio-geographical and environmental conditions between Southwest Sumba (rural) and Gunungkidul (peri-urban) likely contributed to the high variability of pneumococcal colonization prevalence. Although we could not collect most data related to these (except for the primary fuel for cooking where nearly all households in Southwest Sumba used wood only compared to <20% in Gunungkidul), we observed Southwest Sumba has poorer access to clean water and health services, which might lead to poorer hygiene compared to those in Gunungkidul. At the same time, housing density was relatively higher in Southwest Sumba, and if air pollution was taken into consideration, those living in Southwest Sumba are more likely to be exposed to indoor air pollution (woodsmoke from cooking indoors) and outdoor pollution (unpaved dirt roads). Exposure to air pollution has been reported to be associated with increased risk of respiratory infections and higher rates and density of pneumococcal colonization [46].

In this study, we found that over 20% of isolates were resistant to tetracycline, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, chloramphenicol, and penicillin when using the meningitis breakpoints. Penicillin has been identified as one of the most commonly prescribed antibiotics to treat respiratory system disorders in children in Indonesia [47]. It was reported that aminopenicillins and tetracyclines accounted for the majority of the prescribed antibiotics among individuals visiting public healthcare facilities in Surabaya and Semarang, Indonesia [48]. Amoxicillin was the most common antibiotic prescribed in community health centers (puskesmas) followed by trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, isoniazid, and tetracycline [49]. Prevalence of NS and MDNS was higher among vaccine serotype strains; vaccine serotypes accounted for 73.9% of strains NS to ≥1 antibiotic and 19.9% of MDNS strains. This is consistent with what was observed in countries prior to the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines [10]. When the majority of resistant infections are due to vaccine serotypes, introduction of PCVs has been shown to lead to reductions in antibiotic resistance by reducing the prevalence of the circulating vaccine serotypes [50]. Similar benefits are expected in Indonesia after widespread introduction of PCV13.

There are no laboratory-based surveillance systems to monitor vaccine-preventable pneumococcal disease in Indonesia; however, an estimated 585,770 (uncertainty range [UR] 505,415–696,315) pneumococcal cases and 8,725 (UR 5655–11,038) pneumococcal deaths occurred in children aged <5 years in 2015 [2]. Monitoring the prevalence of serotype-specific carriage in children in two areas of the Indonesian archipelago prior to and after introduction of PCV13 will allow us to evaluate changes in the prevalence of colonization due to vaccine serotypes with disease potential [28] and to estimate expected direct and indirect impact of the pneumococcal vaccine program [11]. Certain vaccine serotypes, such as serotypes 1 and 4, are rarely carried, therefore, predicting vaccine impact on disease based on the prevalence of carried serotypes will likely lead to an underestimate of the full PCV benefits.

In conclusion, we found that more than 50% of pneumococcal strains colonizing children in Indonesia are covered by PCV13 and the majority of these vaccine type strains were non-susceptible to one or more commonly prescribed antibiotics. Our results suggest that PCV13, introduced into Indonesia’s national infant immunization schedule in 2022, has the potential to reduce pneumococcal disease burden. Continued monitoring of the circulating serotypes will be needed to document PCV13 impact on vaccine serotype carriage and to detect the emergence of non-vaccine serotypes and antibiotic resistance.

Supporting information

S1 Fig. Distribution of vaccine serotypes, non-vaccine serotypes, and non-typeable pneumococcal isolatesa by study siteb.

(PPTX)

S2 Fig. Distribution of vaccine serotype, non-vaccine serotype, and non-typeable isolates by age groupa,b.

(PPTX)

S3 Fig. Carriage prevalence of S. pneumoniae and vaccine serotype S. pneumoniae by age group and study sitea,b.

(PPTX)

S1 File. Interpretive categories and MIC breakpoints for S. pneumoniae isolatesa.

(PDF)

S2 File. Antibiotic non-susceptibility of pneumococcal isolates (N = 1,107) obtained from children aged <5 years by serotype and study site.

(PDF)

S3 File. Multi-drug non-susceptibility of pneumococcal isolates (N = 1,107) obtained from children <5 years of age by serotype and study site.

(PDF)

Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank Donna Angelina Rade, Diyan Yunanto Setyaji and all of the field staff, the Provincial and District Health Offices, Puskesmas, Posyandu and kader Posyandu in Gunungkidul and Southwest Sumba and Koperasi Jasa Institut Riset Eijkman management, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Indonesia for their contribution in the study.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding Statement

This work was funded by the Grant or Cooperative Agreement Number, NU2GGH001852-03, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Decision Letter 0

Jose Melo-Cristino

12 Sep 2023

PONE-D-23-21406Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae among children <5 years of age in Indonesia prior to pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introductionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Safari,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The manuscript has been assessed by two reviewers. Their comments are available below. The reviewers have raised a number of concerns about the methodology and the data, they recommend revisions to provide a fuller outline of the methodology and main results.

Please carefully revise the manuscript to address all the points raised by the two reviewers.

The authors declare no competing interests. However, one of the authors indicates as the current address that of a company that manufactures one of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Please clarify.

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

**********

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The authors of this paper describe a pneumococcal carriage study among children aged <5 years old before the introduction of PCV13, in Indonesia. The authors describe pneumococcal carriage rates, risk factors associated with pneumococcal carriage, serotype distribution as well as antibiotic susceptibility. The authors compare two areas of Indonesia, one rural in the East region and one peri-urban in the West region. This study will contribute to the establishment of a baseline that may be used to monitor how PCV13 impact on colonization in this population.

I have some major comments and minor comments.

Major comments:

1. Please clarify in the Introduction if PCV13 was the first PCV or to be ntroduced in Indonesia. Before 2017, no PCV has been introduced in Indonesia?

2. In the methods, in the study design and population section, a brief description of each region in terms of number of habitants/population density and living conditions may be useful to help put the findings into context.

3. I have some concerns regarding the identification of non-typeable isolates:

- Are they optochin >14 and bile positive? Please clarify.

- Are they non-typeable isolates because a serotype could not be determined or are they non-capsulated isolates?

- There are some strains of the Mitis group lytA positive that are not pneumococcus. Therefore, I would recommend, in addition to lytA real-time PCR, to perform real-time PCR targeting piaB or SP2020 genes. True pneumococci will be positive for both lytA and piaB. Also, a good indication of non-capsulated isolates would be positive results of lytA and SP2020, but negative for piaB (Please see Miellet, 2023, Front Microbiol, doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1122276).

In addition, you could also perform an assay to detect non-capsulated pneumococci based on a PCR targeting lytA, cpsA, aliB-like ORF2, and 16S rDNA genes, plus a restriction fragment length polymorphism assay to differentiate typical from atypical lytA, as described in Simoes et al, 2011, Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2011.07.009.

Given the high number of NT isolates found in this study, it may be relevant to clarify these points.

4. Are the differences in carriage prevalence in the two regions significantly different? Given the percentages I would guess that they are significantly different. Please indicate the p-value in the text.

5. Did you perform the analysis of risk factors associated with pneumococcal carriage by geographic location? Please clarify. Could be interesting to do that and see and what kind of results would the authors obtain.

6. I would recommend that the fold-value as well as the p-values for the characteristics that are associated to pneumococcal carriage in the multivariate analysis should be indicated in the main text in the appropriated section.

7. The authors mentioned that children who do not attend day-care centers have higher carriage prevalence. I find it a curious result. On average how many hours per day do children spend in day-cares? Can the authors speculate about this result?

8. Since the comparison between rural and peri-urban regions is one of the main focuses of the study, I encourage the authors to add more discussion on this topic in the discussion.

Minor comments:

1. Could be potentially interesting for some readers to have a table with antimicrobial non-susceptibility associate with each serotype that the authors have found. It could be added in supplementary material

2. Line 118: Replace “during” by “between”.

3. Line 212: Replace “during” by “between”.

4. Line 219: Delete “a”.

Reviewer #2: Article describing the nasopharyngeal carriage S. pneumoniae in Indonesian children under than 5 years old in 2017. The article is well written, methodology is correct and the discussion is supported by the results obtained.

Major comments

1. The main inconvenient of this work is that isolates were collected six years ago, in 2017. Together with the fact that already there are some articles reporting pneumococcal carriage in Indonesia (including Tenggara region and Yogyakarta) previous to PCV13 (references 8, 9, 18, 20, 21 and others) but also post-PCV13 (references 16) makes the study a little old-fashioned. If the authors have data on post-PCV13 it would have been more interesting to observe the supposed changes after vaccine introduction.

2. Line 145. Serotyping. “S. pneumoniae isolates were serotyped by conventional multiplex polymerase chain reaction (cmPCR) based testing [12] followed by Quellung reaction (Staten Institute, Denmark).”

In the reference of Carvalho M da G, et al. only the primers for 13 serotypes/serogroups are described. In fact, they use a “A conventional sequential multiplex PCR able to detect a total of 40 serotypes” and do a reference to the other PCRs used.

Please, use the original references for all PCRs. Also, in the results the number of pneumococci that were not serotyped (non-typeable) should be pointed out. How do the authors know that a concrete non-typeable serotype is less prevalent than other known serotypes (around 10% of the isolates were non-typeable according to Figure 1)?

3. PCVs were not included in Indonesian National Vaccination Schedule until 2022 (line 82). But, were there PCVs available in the private market? Had any children from either region been vaccinated? These data should be included. The % of carriage in Gunungkidul children is very low (30.9%) and the % of vaccine serotypes higher in older children. Could this low % carriage and different serotype distribution have any relation with the use of PCVs in the private market?

Minor comments.

Line 150. Why amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (AMC) and not amoxicillin (AMX) alone? Better to put amoxicillin since AMC could induce misuse of AMC that ha much more seaside effects.

I also suggest using the abbreviation of SXT for trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (first time mentioned in line 151) and for “folate pathway antagonists” (line 296).

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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PLoS One. 2024 Jan 11;19(1):e0297041. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297041.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


2 Nov 2023

Rebuttal Letter

Editor:

The manuscript has been assessed by two reviewers. Their comments are available below. The reviewers have raised a number of concerns about the methodology and the data, they recommend revisions to provide a fuller outline of the methodology and main results.

RESPONSE: We thank both reviewers for their review and comments. We responded to all of their comments and revised the manuscript accordingly.

The authors declare no competing interests. However, one of the authors indicates as the current address that of a company that manufactures one of the pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Please clarify.

RESPONSE: Tamara Pilishvili was an employee of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during the data collection, data analyses, and the drafting of this manuscript. She recently accepted a job with GSK and as of February 2023 is an employee of GSK. GSK manufactures a 10-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV10, Synflorix), and this vaccine has never been licensed in the US, nor has it been introduced in Indonesia.

Journal requirements:

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

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https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

RESPONSE: We revised the manuscript according PLOS ONE's style requirements

2. This manuscript describes an observational study. Please consider whether this manuscript meets PLOS ONE's guidelines on observational studies involving human subjects https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines. If you would like additional assistance evaluating this manuscript, PLOS ONE Staff Editors and Section Editors have developed a tool https://storage.googleapis.com/genweb.plos.org/RR/EditorResources_CSSAssessment.pdf for you to consider as you determine whether the manuscript should be sent for external peer review. If you feel that the quality of the manuscript does not meet the minimum requirements outlined by this tool, please consider rejecting the manuscript before peer review, ensuring that the decision is justified according to PLOS ONE’s publication criteria. Please contact plosone@plos.org with any questions or concerns.

RESPONSE: This manuscript meets PLOS ONE's guidelines on observational studies involving human subjects

3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ

RESPONSE: We updated the ORCID ID for corresponding author.

4. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information.

RESPONSE: We confirm to include captions for our Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly.

Reviewer #1:

Reviewer #1: The authors of this paper describe a pneumococcal carriage study among children aged <5 years old before the introduction of PCV13, in Indonesia. The authors describe pneumococcal carriage rates, risk factors associated with pneumococcal carriage, serotype distribution as well as antibiotic susceptibility. The authors compare two areas of Indonesia, one rural in the East region and one peri-urban in the West region. This study will contribute to the establishment of a baseline that may be used to monitor how PCV13 impact on colonization in this population.

I have some major comments and minor comments.

Major comments:

1. Please clarify in the Introduction if PCV13 was the first PCV or to be introduced in Indonesia. Before 2017, no PCV has been introduced in Indonesia?

RESPONSE: Thank you for your concern. We confirm that PCV13 was the first PCV to be introduced in Indonesia as a demonstration project in Lombok Island in the West Nusa Tenggara province in 2017. The demonstration project only occurred in a limited geographic area (Lombok Island) and the location of this pilot introduction did not overlap with the two study sites included in this study (Gunungkidul in Yogyakarta and Southwest Sumba in East Nusa Tenggara). In 2021, PCV13 introduction was expanded to select districts in East and West Java with nationwide introduction starting in 2022. Gunungkidual and Southwest Sumba were a part of the national PCV13 introduction in 2022. PCVs were only available through a private market and based on the data we collected on PCV vaccination history from enrolled children, we found that only 0.2% (4/1822) had received ≥1 dose of PCV.

We made the following edits in the introduction:

Lines 79-89 (revised version with track changes): Prior to 2017, 10-valent PCV (PCV10) and the 13-valent PCV (PCV13) were available in Indonesia as part of a private service in hospitals. In 2017, the government of Indonesia introduced PCV13 in a limited geographic area, Lombok Island in the West Nusa Tenggara province, as a demonstration project using a schedule of two primary doses at two and three months of age followed by a booster at 12 months (2+1 schedule) [8]. In 2021, PCV13 was introduced as a part of the national program and launched in select districts in East and West Java and nationwide introduction starting in 2022.

2. In the methods, in the study design and population section, a brief description of each region in terms of number of habitants/population density and living conditions may be useful to help put the findings into context.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this suggestion. We have added the following details to the study design and population section of the methods.

Lines 127-135 (revised version with track changes): Gunungkidul district, Yogyakarta province, has an estimated total population of 770,880 in 2022, with 46,958 (6%) children <5 years of age. Southwest Sumba district in the province of East Nusa Tenggara has an estimated total population of 308,106 in 2022, with 41,334 (13%) children <5 years of age. The district of Southwest Sumba is primarily comprised of rural sub-districts with less access to health services, clean water, and education. Although parts of Gunungkidul district were also categorized as rural by Statistics Indonesia, generally, the district has better access to health services, clean water, and education compared to Southwest Sumba.

3. I have some concerns regarding the identification of non-typeable isolates:

- Are they optochin >14 and bile positive? Please clarify.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your concerns. We confirm that all isolates we defined as non-typeable pneumococcal isolates were indeed confirmed with bile solubility test, diameter of optochin was estimated >14 mm, and positive for lytA gene detection by qPCR test.

4. Are they non-typeable isolates because a serotype could not be determined or are they non-capsulated isolates?

RESPONSE: The non-typeable pneumococcal isolates are negative for quellung test (there is no positive pool antisera, representing all serotypes, detected by quellung). The pneumococcal isolates with negative reaction for quellung antisera, also tested negative for 41 conventional multiplex PCR assays encompassing 70 pneumococcal serotypes (Da Gloria Carvalho et al. 2010. J. Clin. Microbiol. 48: 1611-1618). Also see: Table 1: List of oligonucleotide primers used in 41 conventional multiplex PCR assays for pneumococcal serotype deduction of 70 serotypes (cdc.gov) at: Pneumococcus Streptococcus Lab Resources and Protocols | CDC.

5. There are some strains of the Mitis group lytA positive that are not pneumococcus. Therefore, I would recommend, in addition to lytA real-time PCR, to perform real-time PCR targeting piaB or SP2020 genes. True pneumococci will be positive for both lytA and piaB. Also, a good indication of non-capsulated isolates would be positive results of lytA and SP2020, but negative for piaB (Please see Miellet, 2023, Front Microbiol, doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1122276).

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We determined the non-typeable by combination of susceptibility to optochin disc, bile solubility test, lytA detection by qPCR, and quellung antisera negative in consecutive order. We used bile solubility to distinguish non-typeable isolates of S. pneumoniae from non-pneumococcus including S. pseudopneumoniae and S. mitis by considering previous report mentioned S. pseudopneumoniae and S. mitis were insoluble in bile solubility.

6. In addition, you could also perform an assay to detect non-capsulated pneumococci based on a PCR targeting lytA, cpsA, aliB-like ORF2, and 16S rDNA genes, plus a restriction fragment length polymorphism assay to differentiate typical from atypical lytA, as described in Simoes et al, 2011, Diagn Microbiol Infect Dis doi: 10.1016/j.diagmicrobio.2011.07.009.

Given the high number of NT isolates found in this study, it may be relevant to clarify these points.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your inputs and suggestions. we consider this manuscript to focus on describing the prevalence of S. pneumoniae before pneumococcal vaccine introduction which is isolated from the nasopharynx of children. We will elaborate further about non-typeable in the next manuscript focusing on the non-typeable isolates.

7. Are the differences in carriage prevalence in the two regions significantly different? Given the percentages I would guess that they are significantly different. Please indicate the p-value in the text.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the suggestion. Yes, the carriage prevalence in the two regions was significantly different. We added the p-value to the results section of the text.

Lines 244-246 (revised version with track changes): We found the carriage prevalence was 87.6% and 30.9% among children in Southwest Sumba (714/815) and Gunungkidul (311/1,007) (P<0.0001), respectively (Table 1).

8. Did you perform the analysis of risk factors associated with pneumococcal carriage by geographic location? Please clarify. Could be interesting to do that and see and what kind of results would the authors obtain.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the question. We did perform the risk factor analysis by site; however, we found there were not sufficient differences in the ORs for the characteristics by site to have the models presented separately.

9. I would recommend that the fold-value as well as the p-values for the characteristics that are associated to pneumococcal carriage in the multivariate analysis should be indicated in the main text in the appropriated section.

RESPONSE: Thank you for the suggestions. We made the following additions to the text:

Lines 265-277 (revised version with track changes): In a multivariate analysis, the odds of pneumococcal carriage varied significantly by several characteristics: children aged 1–2 years had a 1.7-fold-increased odds compared to children aged <1 year (P=0.0008), households with the presence of other children <5 years old had a 1.9-fold-increased odds compared to those without (P<0.0001), households with 4–6 persons had a 0.8-fold-decreased odds compared to households with 2–3 persons (P=0.012), households using wood only as the primary fuel source had a 4.8-fold-increased odds (P<0.0001) while households using wood with any other source had a 0.8-fold-decreased odds (P<0.0001) compared to households using LPG or kerosene only, exposure to cigarette smoke in the household was associated with a 0.8-fold-decreased odds (P=0.034), and the presence of ≥1 symptom of respiratory illness was associated with a 2.8 fold-increased odds (P<0.0001) (Table 2).

10. The authors mentioned that children who do not attend day-care centers have higher carriage prevalence. I find it a curious result. On average how many hours per day do children spend in day-cares? Can the authors speculate about this result?

RESPONSE: Thank you for the questions. There may be variability in the number of hours children spend in daycare centers across Indonesia; however, generally it is at least 120, 360, and 900 minutes (6 hours) per week for children aged less than 2, 2-4, and 4-6 years old, respectively. Depending on the daycare centers and parents’ flexibility, it’s usually around 2-3 hours per day. We found a higher proportion of children attended daycare in Gunungkidul (30.7%), the peri-urban site, compared to Southwest Sumba, the rural site (17.8%, P<0.0001). The significant difference is likely due to a higher proportion of mothers working outside of the home in the peri-urban site compared to the rural site. When looking at the pneumococcal carriage prevalence by participant characteristics with the sites combined, it is possible the higher carriage prevalence found among children who do not attend daycare is being affected by the higher pneumococcal carriage prevalence in Southwest Sumba, the site with lower daycare attendance. In Table 1, we present the pneumococcal carriage prevalence overall and by study site for the participant characteristics. Pneumococcal carriage among children who do and do not attend daycare does not vary significantly when stratified by study site. In Gunungkidul, pneumococcal carriage prevalence was 32.0% among children who attended daycare compared to 30.4% among those who did not (p=0.598). While the pneumococcal carriage prevalence is higher in Southwest Sumba compared to Gunungkidul, it did not vary among children who attended daycare (88.3%) compared to those who did not (87.5%, p=0.788). Because fewer children attended daycare in Southwest Sumba, the higher pneumococcal carriage prevalence found in this site may be driving the difference when the study sites are combined. While the pneumococcal carriage prevalence among children who did not attend daycare was higher with the study site combined, it should be considered in the context of the variability of this characteristic and carriage prevalence by study site.

We added the following text to the results to make note that there is no longer a difference when stratified by site:

Lines 252-256 (revised version with track changes): Children who did not attend daycare also had a slightly higher carriage prevalence than those who did (58.3%; 798/1,368 vs. 50.0%; 227/454); however, when stratified by site there was no difference in the carriage prevalence by daycare attendance (Gunungkidul: 32.0%; 99/309 vs. 30.4%; 212/698; Southwest Sumba: 88.3%; 128/145 vs. 87.5%; 586/670).

11. Since the comparison between rural and peri-urban regions is one of the main focuses of the study, I encourage the authors to add more discussion on this topic in the discussion.

RESPONSE: Thank you for your suggestions. We have made the following addition to the discussion:

Lines 448-465: The difference in socio-geographical and environmental conditions between Southwest Sumba (rural) and Gunungkidul (peri-urban) likely contributed to the high variability of pneumococcal colonization prevalence. Although we could not collect most data related to these (except for the primary fuel for cooking where nearly all households in Southwest Sumba used wood only compared to <20% in Gunungkidul), we observed Southwest Sumba has poorer access to clean water and health services, which might lead to poorer hygiene compared to those in Gunungkidul. At the same time, housing density was relatively higher in Southwest Sumba, and if air pollution was taken into consideration, those living in Southwest Sumba are more likely to be exposed to indoor air pollution (woodsmoke from cooking indoors) and outdoor pollution (unpaved dirt roads). Exposure to air pollution has been reported to be associated with increased risk of respiratory infections and higher rates and density of pneumococcal colonization [44].

Minor comments:

1. Could be potentially interesting for some readers to have a table with antimicrobial non-susceptibility associate with each serotype that the authors have found. It could be added in supplementary material

RESPONSE: Thank you for this suggestion. We propose the addition of two additional tables in the supplement for the editor’s consideration. We made mention of these additional tables in the below lines of the results:

Lines 328-330 (revised version with track changes): The antibiotic susceptibility of pneumococcal isolates by serotype (overall and by site) are summarized in S2 and S3 Tables.

2. Line 118: Replace “during” by “between”.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your input. We have revised the manuscript according to your suggestion.

3. Line 212: Replace “during” by “between”.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your input. We have revised the manuscript as suggested.

4. Line 219: Delete “a”.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for the input; we have deleted it according to your suggestion.

Reviewer #2:

Reviewer #2: Article describing the nasopharyngeal carriage S. pneumoniae in Indonesian children under than 5 years old in 2017. The article is well written, methodology is correct and the discussion is supported by the results obtained.

Major comments

1. The main inconvenient of this work is that isolates were collected six years ago, in 2017. Together with the fact that already there are some articles reporting pneumococcal carriage in Indonesia (including Tenggara region and Yogyakarta) previous to PCV13 (references 8, 9, 18, 20, 21 and others) but also post-PCV13 (references 16) makes the study a little old-fashioned. If the authors have data on post-PCV13 it would have been more interesting to observe the supposed changes after vaccine introduction.

RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. Despite the publications mentioned by the reviewer, data on pneumococcal disease burden in Indonesia are limited, and there are no laboratory-based surveillance systems capable of serving as a platform for PCV impact evaluations. None of the articles mentioned by the reviewer have shown such large variability in the pneumococcal carriage prevalence across Indonesia pre-PCV13 introduction as we found in this study. The article mentioned by the reviewer post-PCV13 focused only on the site of the PCV13 demonstration program, and it was conducted prior to national introduction of PCV13. Since national introduction did not occur until 2022, we are not aware of any published studies evaluating the impact of nationwide PCV13 introduction. While the study was conducted in 2017, the data are still relevant to establish a baseline pneumococcal carriage prevalence pre-national PCV13 introduction given the limited data available in Indonesia.

2. Line 145. Serotyping. “S. pneumoniae isolates were serotyped by conventional multiplex polymerase chain reaction (cmPCR) based testing [12] followed by Quellung reaction (Staten Institute, Denmark).”

In the reference of Carvalho M da G, et al. only the primers for 13 new serotypes/serogroups are described at the time of publication. In fact, they use a “A conventional sequential multiplex PCR able to detect a total of 40 serotypes” and do a reference to the other PCRs used seeat www.cdc.gov/ncidod/biotech/strep/pcr.htm it referenced to a table with 41 conventional multiplex PCR assays encompassing 70 pneumococcal serotypes. Pneumococcus Streptococcus Lab Resources and Protocols | CDC

Please, use the original references for all PCRs. Also, in the results the number of pneumococci that were not serotyped (non-typeable) should be pointed out. How do the authors know that a concrete non-typeable serotype is less prevalent than other known serotypes (around 10% of the isolates were non-typeable according to Figure 1)?

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your revision and suggestions. We have revised the reference and have included the original reference as reviewer addressed. You can also find table with assays and all references of each StrepLab home page:

Table 1: List of oligonucleotide primers used in 41 conventional multiplex PCR assays for pneumococcal serotype deduction of 70 serotypes (cdc.gov)

3. PCVs were not included in Indonesian National Vaccination Schedule until 2022 (line 82). But, were there PCVs available in the private market? Had any children from either region been vaccinated? These data should be included. The % of carriage in Gunungkidul children is very low (30.9%) and the % of vaccine serotypes higher in older children. Could this low % carriage and different serotype distribution have any relation with the use of PCVs in the private market?

RESPONSE: Thank you for these comments and questions. Regarding the availability of PCVs on the private market, we made the following addition to the text:

Lines 79-89 (revised version with track changes): Prior to 2017, 10-valent PCV (PCV10) and the 13-valent PCV (PCV13) were available in Indonesia as part of a private service in hospitals. In 2017, the government of Indonesia introduced PCV13 in a limited geographic area, Lombok Island in the West Nusa Tenggara province, as a demonstration project using a schedule of two primary doses at two and three months of age followed by a booster at 12 months (2+1 schedule) [8]. In 2021, PCV13 was introduced as a part of the national program and launched in select districts in East and West Java and nationwide introduction starting in 2022.

Minor comments.

Line 150. Why amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (AMC) and not amoxicillin (AMX) alone? Better to put amoxicillin since AMC could induce misuse of AMC that ha much more seaside effects.

RESPONSE: We used the Sensititre plate STP6F for determining the antimicrobial susceptibility profile of our isolates. In this commercial panel, the amoxicillin is provided in combination with clavulanate (Amoxicillin/clavulanic acid) and the amoxicillin alone is not provided in the panel. We reported the antibiotics covered by the panel.

I also suggest using the abbreviation of SXT for trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (first time mentioned in line 151) and for “folate pathway antagonists” (line 296).

RESPONSE: Thank you for the suggestion, we have revised as suggested in line 166 and line 323.

Decision Letter 1

Jose Melo-Cristino

21 Nov 2023

PONE-D-23-21406R1Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae among children <5 years of age in Indonesia prior to pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introductionPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Safari,

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Reviewer #2: Question 2 of R1.

Authors have not included the original references used for PCR-serotyping described in the CDC web page. They only include one of the original references, but others as Pai et al . 2006, J. Clin. Microbiol. 44: 124-131 or Pimenta et al . 2009. J. Clin. Microbiol. I7: 2353-2354, Menezes et al. 2013, J. Clin. Microbiol. 51(7):2470-1 have not been included.

Besides, the next question has not been answered:

How do the authors know that a concrete non-typeable serotype is less prevalent than other known serotypes (around 10% of the isolates were non-typeable according to Figure 1)?

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PLoS One. 2024 Jan 11;19(1):e0297041. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0297041.r004

Author response to Decision Letter 1


21 Dec 2023

Rebuttal Letter

Reviewer #2: Question 2 of R1.

Authors have not included the original references used for PCR-serotyping described in the CDC web page. They only include one of the original references, but others as Pai et al . 2006, J. Clin. Microbiol. 44: 124-131 or Pimenta et al . 2009. J. Clin. Microbiol. I7: 2353-2354, Menezes et al. 2013, J. Clin. Microbiol. 51(7):2470-1 have not been included.

RESPONSE: Thank you very much for your revision and suggestions. We have revised the reference and have included the original reference as reviewer addressed. We have added these references to line 152 to 154.

Besides, the next question has not been answered:

How do the authors know that a concrete non-typeable serotype is less prevalent than other known serotypes (around 10% of the isolates were non-typeable according to Figure 1)?

RESPONSE: Thank you for this comment. Regarding your question related to the prevalence of vaccine serotypes, non-vaccine serotypes and non-typeable including how we determine the non-typeable, we would confirm that the non-typeable isolates were determined by following criteria: bile soluble, negative antisera reaction, and positive lytA gene detection as we provided in comment #3 of reviewer #1. These 3 criteria will define the non-typeable Streptococcus pneumoniae (you might call these isolates as concrete non-typeable). The presentation we provided in this manuscript are divided into 3 groups as commonly reported in many publications related to prevalence of pneumococcal serotypes; vaccine serotype prevalence, non-vaccine serotype prevalence, and non-typeable prevalence. We have provided the prevalence of non-typeable in line 288 – 290 “Overall, 11.7% of the pneumococcal isolates were non-typeable; 12.1% (95/784) in Southwest Sumba and 10.5% (34/323) in Gunungkidul (Fig. 1)” while the other 2 groups; vaccine serotypes and non-vaccine serotypes are provided in line 280 – 288 ” Among the 1,107 pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common vaccine serotypes were 6B (17.3%), 19F (12.4%), and 23F (7.8%), and the most common non-vaccine serotypes were 6C (5.0%), 11A (4.0%), and 34 (3.1%). In Gunungkidul, among the 323 pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common vaccine serotypes were 6B (16.4%), 19F (15.8%), and 3 (4.6%), and the most common non-vaccine serotypes were 6C (11.1%), 34 (6.8%), and 15C (3.4%) (Fig 1). In Southwest Sumba, among the 784 pneumococcal isolates identified, the most common vaccine serotypes were 6B (17.6%), 19F (11.0%), and 23F (9.3%), and the most common non-vaccine serotypes were 11A (5.1%), 13 (2.7%), and 6C (2.4%) (Fig 1)”.

It is common to report the non-typeable separately from the non-vaccine serotypes in many previous publication since the non-typeable is different with non-vaccine serotypes whose capsule and capsular polysaccharide as surface antigen and can react with antisera during quellung serotyping. This capsule and capsular polysaccharide among non-vaccine serotypes is important for surveillance records since the ability of being invasive due to presence of capsule and potential vaccine formulation by identifying the capsular polysaccharide. Different with non-typeable, this group has no capsule and capsular polysaccharide that makes this group do not react with antisera. The non-typeable will expose the surface antigen (due to lack of capsule) to the environment that will be recognized by immune system which makes this group less concern in the surveillance. Therefore, in many publication, the non-typeable prevalence will be separated from the non-vaccine serotypes which are sometimes reported less than the non-typeable group.

Decision Letter 2

Jose Melo-Cristino

28 Dec 2023

Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae among children <5 years of age in Indonesia prior to pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction

PONE-D-23-21406R2

Dear Dr. Safari,

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Acceptance letter

Jose Melo-Cristino

2 Jan 2024

PONE-D-23-21406R2

PLOS ONE

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Associated Data

    This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

    Supplementary Materials

    S1 Fig. Distribution of vaccine serotypes, non-vaccine serotypes, and non-typeable pneumococcal isolatesa by study siteb.

    (PPTX)

    S2 Fig. Distribution of vaccine serotype, non-vaccine serotype, and non-typeable isolates by age groupa,b.

    (PPTX)

    S3 Fig. Carriage prevalence of S. pneumoniae and vaccine serotype S. pneumoniae by age group and study sitea,b.

    (PPTX)

    S1 File. Interpretive categories and MIC breakpoints for S. pneumoniae isolatesa.

    (PDF)

    S2 File. Antibiotic non-susceptibility of pneumococcal isolates (N = 1,107) obtained from children aged <5 years by serotype and study site.

    (PDF)

    S3 File. Multi-drug non-susceptibility of pneumococcal isolates (N = 1,107) obtained from children <5 years of age by serotype and study site.

    (PDF)

    Data Availability Statement

    All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.


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