Blood culture collection technique and pneumococcal surveillance in Malawi during the four year period 2003-2006: an observational study

Mtunthama, N., Gordon, Stephen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6576-1116, Kusimbwe, T., Zijlstra, E. E., Molyneux, Malcolm E and French, Neil (2008) 'Blood culture collection technique and pneumococcal surveillance in Malawi during the four year period 2003-2006: an observational study'. BMC Infectious Diseases, Vol 8, e137.

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Abstract

Background

Blood culture surveillance will be used for assessing the public health effectiveness of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in Africa. Between 2003 and 2006 we assessed blood culture outcome and performance in adult patients in the central public hospital in Blantyre, Malawi, before and after the introduction of a dedicated nurse led blood culture team.

Methods

A prospective observational study.

Results

Following the introduction of a specialised blood culture team in 2005, the proportion of contaminated cultures decreased (19.6% in 2003 to 5.0% in 2006), blood volume cultured increased and pneumococcal recovery increased significantly from 2.8% of all blood cultures to 6.1%. With each extra 1 ml of blood cultured the odds of recovering a pneumococcus increased by 18%.

Conclusion

Standardisation and assessment of blood culture performance (blood volume and contamination rate) should be incorporated into pneumococcal disease surveillance activities where routine blood culture practice is constrained by limited resources.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/8/137
Subjects:	WA Public Health > WA 20.5 Research (General) WC Communicable Diseases > Infection. Bacterial Infections > Bacterial Infections > WC 204 Pneumococcal pneumonia. Staphylococcal pneumonia WX Hospitals and Other Health Facilities > Clinical Departments and Units > WX 207 Clinical and pathological laboratories QY Clinical Pathology > Blood. Blood Chemistry > QY 408 Physical examination
Faculty: Department:	Groups (2002 - 2012) > Clinical Group
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-8-137
Depositing User:	Users 43 not found.
Date Deposited:	19 Jul 2010 14:20
Last Modified:	17 Aug 2022 08:56
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/869

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