Early-onset neonatal sepsis and the implementation of group B streptococcus prophylaxis in a Brazilian maternity hospital: a descriptive study

OBJECTIVES: To describe early-onset neonatal sepsis (EOS) epidemiology in a public maternity hospital in Brasilia, Brazil. METHODS: We defined EOS as a positive blood culture result obtained from infants aged ≤72 hours of life plus treatment with antibiotic therapy for ≥5 days. Incidence was calculated based on the number of cases and total live births (LB). This is a descriptive study comparing the period of 2012–2013 with the period of 2014–September 2015, before and after implementation of antibiotic prophylaxis during labor for group B streptococcus (GBS) prevention, respectively. RESULTS: Overall, 36 infants developed EOS among 21,219 LB (1.7 cases per 1000 LB) and 16 died (case fatality rate of 44%). From 2014, 305 vaginal-rectal swabs were collected from high-risk women and 74 (24%) turned out positive for GBS. After implementation of GBS prevention guidelines, no new cases of GBS were detected, and the EOS incidence was reduced from 1.9 (95% CI 1.3–2.8) to 1.3 (95% CI 0.7–2.3) cases per 1000 LB from 2012–2013 to 2014–September 2015 (p = 0.32). CONCLUSIONS: Although the reduction of EOS incidence was not significant, GBS colonization among pregnant women was high, no cases of neonatal GBS have occurred after implementation of prevention guidelines.