Genetic relatedness among nontypeable pneumococci implicated in sporadic cases of conjunctivitis

Nontypeable Streptococcus pneumoniae is a common cause of epidemic conjunct ivitis, A previous molecular fingerprinting study identified a clone of non typeable pneumococcus that was responsible for a recent outbreak of conjunc tivitis. In the present study, we examined the extent to which pneumococci that cause sporadic cases of conjunctivitis are related to this epidemic st rain, Using arbitrarily primed BOX-PCR, we have determined that, of 10 nont ypeable pneumococci causing sporadic conjunctivitis, 5 were clonal and clos ely related to a previous outbreak strain, whereas 5 others were geneticall y diverse.