S. pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is a Gram-positive bacterium that is accountable for most of the cases of pneumonia.
It is a commensal organism in our respiratory tract and doesn’t mean any harm unless it is infected that can caused harmful disease not just pneumonia but also ear infection, sinus infection, bacteremia, bronchitis, otitis media, septicemia, and meningitis, and other pneumococcal infections. S. pneumoniae is alpha-hemolytic, meaning that it can destroy down red blood cells via the manufacturing of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2).
The manufacturing of H2O2 by way of the bacterial contamination can also motive harm to DNA, and kill cells inside the lungs. Pneumococcal pneumonia’s symptoms depend on the area affected and can be seen in form of cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, disorientation, sensitivity to light, joint pain, chills, ear pain, sleeplessness, and irritability. If the infection spreads to the brain and spinal cord, it is able to purpose pneumococcal meningitis, characterized by way of a stiff neck, fever, confusion, and complications. In severe cases, pneumococcal disease can cause hearing loss, brain damage, and death. S. pneumoniae can be promptly recognized by refined bacterial examples on blood agar. Because of the hemolytic properties of the microorganisms, they will turn blood agar to dim green.
Be that as it may, developing bacterial societies can require some serious energy. In this way, it is more productive to analyze a disease utilizing more modern systems. S. pneumoniae primarily affect children especially 2 years old and below, adult aged 65 years old and older, and individuals with comorbidities or impaired immune systems.
And people who also smoke cigarette and illegal drugs have high risk of having the said disease. The risk of having this disease increase when there is an absence of normal spleen function, also if the person got involve in HIV infection, diabetes mellitus, influenza and if there are any findings of Strains of S. pneumoniae that are particularly virulent. A gram stain is done from the sputum of the affected person.
The presence of neutrophils and more than ten gram-positive diplococci normally results in the analysis of S. pneumoniae. For further confirmation of this organism, it is streaked on blood agar, while on blood agar the organism need to exhibit alpha-hemolysis, that’s characterized as an area of green coloring across the colonies of microorganism on the agar.
This test isn’t constantly 100 percent conclusive due to the fact that other Streptococcus bacteria can cause alpha-hemolysis. Therefore, the streaked organisms must also show off bile or optochin sensitivity to have more guarantee than this organism is in reality S. Pneumoniae. There are numerous distinct remedy alternatives for S. pneumoniae infections. For serious pneumococcal infections penicillin G is used. For lenient pneumococcal infections penicillin V is used. Because of the developing range of penicillin resistant S.
pneumoniae, this organism has turn out to be a greater problem. S. pneumoniae has a natural transformation system wherein genetic material is exchanged among two organisms.
Therefore, bacteria which have developed antibiotic resistance, whether or not because of mutation or natural selection, can frequently bypass these developments to another bacteria. This natural transformation is increased through the reality that these bacteria have a relatively rapid growth rate and attain huge cell densities in an infectious setting. Due to these natural attributes the spread of the antibiotic resistant genes is cause for greater problem. Luckily, Erythromycin has been proven to work well on these penicillin resistant bacteria. For the prevention of this disease, a vaccine is currently presented which has a 23-valent capsular polysaccharide which protects towards the maximum common strains, however because of the great antigenic kind of the S.
pneumoniae, which has as a minimum 90 different strains, a universal vaccine cannot be developed.
