Seasonality of Pneumococcal Nasopharyngeal Carriage in Rural Gambia Determined within the Context of a Cluster Randomized Pneumococcal Vaccine Trial

Background We conducted an ancillary study among individuals who had participated in a PCV-7 trial in rural Gambia, to determine the influence of season on the prevalence of pneumococcal carriage. Methods 636 individuals above 30 months of age were followed from 4 to 20 months after vaccination with PCV-7 or meningococcal-conjugate-vaccine. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected periodically between November 2006 and June 2008. Overall, 4,495 NPS were collected. Results Prevalence of pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage in the study subjects (median age 11 years) was 55.0%; this prevalence decreased linearly with increasing age (p = 0.001). Prevalence of carriage was significantly higher during the dry than the rainy season for any pneumococcal carriage [57.6% versus 47.8% (p<0.001)], pneumococcal vaccine serotype carriage [10.3% versus 6.5% (p< 0.001)] and non-vaccine serotype carriage [49.7% versus 42.7% (p<0.001)]. Differences remained significant in the adjusted analysis. Conclusions In areas of Africa with marked variation in rainfall, seasonality of pneumococcal carriage needs to be considered when interpreting carriage data.