The agent is associated to benign infections such as acute otitis media and sinusitis, as well as to severe infections such as bacteraemia, meningitis and pneumonia.

Researchers from the Respiratory Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance Group of Osakidetza’s Biodonostia Health Research Institute (HRI)-Donostialdea IHO have developed this test enabling the identification of 76 different S. pneumoniae serotypes in DNA samples taken from bacterial cultures.

S.pneumoniae is responsible for high morbidity and mortality, being one of the principle causal agents of a wide variety of clinical conditions, from benign infections such as acute otitis media and sinusitis, to severe infections such as bacteraemia, meningitis and pneumonia.

This is a major advance, given that infections due to S. pneumoniae represent an important Public Health problem both in industrialised and in less developed countries.

Licencing the kit has been possible thanks to the Biodonostia HRI Research Support unit, a relevant node of the ITEMAS Network, which has coordinated the project between the research group and validations at the Donostialdea IHO Microbiology Department as well as managing the Research Results Transfer Office (OTRI) belonging to the Basque Foundation for Health Innovation and Research (BIOEF), a support structure in the Basque innovation process and also an important ITEMAS node.

PneumoStrip is a test enabling the detection and identification in DNA samples, taken from microbial cultures, of 76 S. pneumoniae serotypes. Until now, more than 95 different types (serotypes) of pneumococcus have been described, which are differentiated by the composition of their external capsule. Currently vaccines are available for a limited number (13 or 23) of these serotypes, according to the data handled by Txema Marimón, Head of the Respiratory Infection and Antimicrobial Resistance Group at the Biodonostia HRI, and one of the four creators of the kit.

An explanatory video can be found below: