Recovering streptococci from the throat, a practical alternative to direct plating in remote tropical communities

Abstract

Throat swabs are regarded as the "gold standard" for diagnosing streptococcal pharyngitis and for surveillance research. Culturing throats in remote tropical settings is logistically difficult, and these settings are commonly burdened by high rates of streptococcal disease. The survival of streptococci on swabs may depend on whether they are of "throat" or "skin" type, as determined by emm pattern typing. The aims of this study were to compare the recovery rates of beta-hemolytic streptococci (BHS) using three different transport methods and to determine whether the recovery rates correlated with the emm pattern type. Monthly duplicate throat swabs were taken from occupants of selected house..