Global Pneumococcal Sequencing collection

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of pneumonia, septicaemia and meningitis in young children. The global deployment of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) which targets up to 13 of the >100 serotypes has effectively reduced the incidence of pneumococcal disease in children worldwide. However, there are still ~9 million cases of disease and over 300,000 deaths annually, in part due to replacement with non-vaccine serotypes and persistence of vaccine serotypes.
 
The Global Pneumococcal Sequencing Project (GPS) is a worldwide genomic surveillance network of >100 scientists. The project is set out to investigate the adaptive changes in pneumococcal populations before and after the vaccine introduction through whole-genome sequencing. At present, the project has sequenced >26,000 pneumococcal isolates from >50 countries and identified emerging lineages with multidrug resistant and high virulence comprising the benefit of PCV programme at international level.

This collection includes genomic surveillance analyses at the national-level and captures important insights, including identification of emerging serotypes and lineages after vaccine implementation. Such insights can inform vaccine use at the national level, and the design of future vaccines. Many of these studies were led by in-country partners, working closely with the GPS team, to enhance local capacity for future genomic surveillance of pathogens.