​Molecular characterization of invasive Group B streptococcus in South Africa, 2019-2020

Molecular characterization of invasive Group B streptococcus in South Africa, 2019-2020

7/21/2021

Buhle Ntozini, BMedSci (Hons)

about presenter

Buhle Ntozini is a Masters student working on the molecular characterization of invasive Group B streptococcus at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Group B Strep International

7/21/2021 10:33:18 pm

Thank you for your outstanding presentation on your work to better understand GBS disease in South Africa. So important! We appreciate you sharing this study for ICGBS 2021!

Buhle Ntozini

7/22/2021 11:22:30 am

Thank you so much. I am honored to have gotten the opportunity to present my data at this conference.

Susanna Elsher

7/22/2021 07:14:18 am

It is great to see that more focus on GBS serotypes is underway. As antibiotic resistance increases and with a GBS vaccine being furthered, your work is of the utmost importance

Buhle Ntozini

7/22/2021 11:28:50 am

Thank you so much!

Marcus C.

7/22/2021 11:55:13 am

Were isolates from any stillborn babies available to be included in your study?

Buhle Ntozini

7/22/2021 01:01:12 pm

Hello, thank you for you question. A few cases of stillborn babies were reported, however, we did not receive isolates for these since they were audit cases. Only two viable isolates were available for further analysis.

Marti Perhach

7/22/2021 03:38:00 pm

Were any of the early-onset isolates identified as from being from babies born preterm in case that info might be useful for other research?

Buhle Ntozini

7/22/2021 11:49:18 pm

I completely agree. This is very important since GBS is a risk factor for preterm birth. At the present time, we haven't examined this. We have the data on patient forms, but it is still being entered into our database, so we haven't done any analysis. Furthermore, this information is only available for isolates collected from enhanced surveillance sites in 2020, since these data were not collected for 2019 isolates. We expect to finish entering this by the end of July. Once this is done, we will then be able to look at whether any if the early-onset isolates were from preterm babies.

James McGregor

7/22/2021 08:20:51 pm

Thank you for your clear, concise explication of SA’s data which is foundational for immune prevention and treatment strategies. Thousands of families wiorld wide thank you and your colleagues for your critically important ongoing work!

Buhle Ntozini

7/22/2021 11:54:32 pm

Thank you so much for your kind words and thank you for watching.

Comments are closed.