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NOTE: A surveillance case definition is a set of uniform criteria used to define a disease for public health surveillance. Surveillance case definitions enable public health officials to classify and count cases consistently across reporting jurisdictions. Surveillance case definitions are not intended to be used by healthcare providers for making a clinical diagnosis or determining how to meet an individual patient’s health needs.

Clinical Description

Streptococcus pneumoniae causes many clinical syndromes, depending on the site of infection (e.g., acute otitis media, pneumonia, bacteremia, or meningitis). Starting in 2000, a conjugate pneumococcal vaccine is recommended for prevention of pneumococcal disease in the pediatric population.

Laboratory Criteria For Diagnosis

Isolation of S. pneumoniae from a normally sterile site (e.g., blood, cerebrospinal fluid, or, less commonly, joint, pleural, or pericardial fluid)

Case Classification

Confirmed

Isolation of S. pneumoniae from a normally sterile site (e.g., blood, cerebrospinal fluid, or, less commonly, joint, pleural, or pericardial fluid)

Comments

The difference between this case definition and the previous case definition for this condition is the inclusion of new case classifications for reporting purposes.

Case classifications for Drug Resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae (DRSP) and Invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) are modified as listed below:

  • Isolates causing IPD from children less than five years of age for which antibacterial susceptibilities are available and determined to be DRSP should be reported only as DRSP (event code 11720).
  • Isolates causing IPD from children less than five years of age which are susceptible, or for which susceptibilities are not available should be reported ONLY as IPD in children less than five years of age (event code 11717).