Study on the Prevalence of Beta Haemolytic Streptococus

¿eta haemolytic streptococcal infections have a worldwide distribution among children and it poses an important health problem globally. About half of the clinical cases of severe sore throat turned out to be due to Streptococcus pyogenes and the remainder being viral etiology. So, a 5 months study was conducted to know the prevalence of beta haemolytic streptococci (BHS) in the throat of school children. This study was conducted from December 2010 to April 2011. During this period a total of 200 throat swab samples were collected from school children (age 3-6 years) of Kirtipur municipality and examined for the presence of BHS in the laboratory of Kathmandu Clinic, Putalisadak. A throat specimen from each child was collected using a sterile cotton swab, spreaded over a 5% blood agar plate and incubated in a CO2 jar at 37¿C for 24 hours. Haemolytic colonies were observed and further studied by Gram staining, catalase test, Bacitracin and Penicillin test. Altogether 18 (9%) BHS isolates were identified from 200 samples, out of which 11 (5.5%) isolates were from males and 7 (3.5%) were from females. Among the 18 BHS isolates, 10 were identified as Group A beta haemolytic streptococci