Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Smoke effect

In children, rise in bacteria is linked to smoke

Children exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke appear to be more likely to be infected with Streptococcus pneumoniae than those who are not.

In a survey of more than 200 children under 5, researchers found that 76 percent of those exposed to smoke had pneumococcus infections compared with 60 percent of those not exposed. The findings appear in the latest issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Most strains of S. pneumoniae that cause serious disease are included in a vaccine routinely given to children. But virulent or drug-resistant strains can cause ear or sinus infections and are a common cause of fatal diseases like meningitis. Most children carry the organism without having symptoms.

Although the study did not address the question, Dr. David Greenberg, the paper's lead author and a senior lecturer in paediatrics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev says that children exposed to smoke were likely to harbour other harmful organisms because of the interference that smoke causes with the ``regular bacteria'' in the nose and throat. The study found that the difference in infection disappeared among those attending day care. The researchers attribute that to the reduced amount of time that smokers' children spend at home. ``Often, mothers do not send children to day care since they want to protect them from infectious diseases in this `dangerous' environment,'' Greenberg said. ``And it is in fact true that children carry less pneumococci if they do not attend day care — unless mothers smoke, in which case the protection goes away.''

(NYT)

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail