Mcconkey

The material to microbiological tests included nasal and pharyngeal swabs collected from patients before a planned vaccination against S. pneumoniae (0m-1st test) and 1-2 months after vaccination (Im-2nd test). The swabs were collected using a kit with a transport medium, and next a culture of microorganisms was performed on the following media: Columbia agar with 5% sheep blood, Mannitol salt agar, McConkey, Chocolate agar, and Sabouraud (bioMerieux, France), and the phenotypic identification with kits: the APINH, the APIStrep, the APIE, the APINE APIStaph, and the API AUX (bioMerieux, France). The numeric code of the identified strain was read out with the apiweb™ program (bioMerieux, France). The tests were conducted according to the routinely applied microbiological diagnostics.

Bacteria were isolated from clinical and environmental samples using standard microbiological procedures as described in the Manual of Clinical Microbiology (editions 8–10, issued by the American Society for Microbiology). In short, blood agar, McConkey and mannitol salt agar plates (all purchased from bioMérieux, Brussels, Belgium) were inoculated and incubated overnight at 37°C. Colonies were identified using the gram-negative (GN) and gram-positive (GP) identification cards for the VITEK 2 microbial ID system (bioMérieux, Brussels, Belgium), according to the manufacturer’s instructions.