Age-related Distribution of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in Respiratory Tract Infection in a Developing Country

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is an organism that belongs to the family mycoplasmataceae. Its role as a disease causing agent continues to draw interest especially with the advent of highly sensitive detection techniques. This bacterium poses a health problem to both animals and humans resulting in serious illnesses such as community-acquired pneumonia, lung damage and this work investigated the prevalence of M. pneumoniae as agent of respiratory tract infections using culture and molecular methods of identification, in patients attending Pulmonary Tuberculosis Clinic at Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching, Hospital, Nnewi as well as detecting the most virulence gene of this organism. A total of 263 sputum samples were collected: 188 test subjects and 75 control subjects. These samples were examined bacteriologically using PPLO broth and agar, MacConkey, blood and chocolate agars. The overall prevalence rates of M. pneumoniae among the 263 subjects were 4.9% by culture. The prevalence rate of the organism was significantly higher among the test subjects 11(5.9%) by culture than the control subjects 2(2.7%) by culture. The colonization of the organism was significant among the age groups 31-40 years (P<0.05). The antibiotic sensitivity pattern of M. pneumoniae showed that the organism was susceptible to Lyntriaxone, Levofloxacin, Ciprofloxacin, Azithromycin and Doxycycline while it showed resistance to Septrin, Peflacine, Rifampicin, Erythromycin and Norbactin. M. pneumoniae is an additional bacterium that might contribute to respiratory tract infections and consequently to death when it disseminates to various organs of the body, hence their presence in the respiratory tract of children, adolescent and adults should not be treated with levity.