Table 1.

Demographic and clinical characteristics of the 242 children enrolled in the present study

Risk factor	S. pneumoniae carriage
	Yes (n=119)	No (n=123)
Sex
Male	61	68
Female	58	55
Age
< 2 years	31	44
≥ 2 years	85	76
Symptomatology at admission in the study
Yes	87	92
No	29	28
Fever
Yes	45	42
No	71	78
Coryza/sneezing
Yes	63	60
No	53	60
Cough/expectoration
Yes	66	63
No	50	57
Fatigue/breathlessness
Yes	24	29
No	92	91
Hipoactivity
Yes	20	26
No	96	94
Chronic or recurrent disease
Yes	27	26
No	89	94
Antibiotics in previous 3 months
Yes	35	44
No	80	76
Prior hospitalization
Yes	38	36
No	77	84
Day care attendancea
Yes	92	71
No	27	52
Young (< 6 years) siblings
Yes	61	40
No	55	80
Received at least 1 dose of PCV7
Yes	2	4
No	113	116

^aDay care attendance includes all children of the day care center plus those from hospital whose parents or legal guardians answered “Yes” to question “Does the child attend a day care center?”; PCV7, 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; Data from seven children were not fully available.