Neonatal Paenibacilliosis: Paenibacillus infection as a Novel Cause of Sepsis in Term Neonates with High Risk of Sequelae in Uganda.
Jessica E EricsonKathy BurgoineElias KumbakumbaMoses OchoraChristine HehnlyFrancis BajunirweJoel BaziraClaudio FronterreCornelia HagmannAbhaya V KulkarniM Senthil KumarJoshua MagombeEdith Mbabazi-KabachelorSarah U MortonMercedeh MovassaghJohn MugambaRonald MulondoDavis NatukwatsaBrian Nsubuga KaayaPeter Olupot-OlupotJustin OnenKathryn SheldonJasmine SmithPaddy SsentongoPeter SsenyongaBenjamin WarfEmmanuel WegoyeLijun ZhangJulius KiwanukaJoseph N PaulsonJames R BroachSteven J SchiffPublished in: Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2023)
Paenibacillus species was identified in 6% of neonates with signs of sepsis who presented to two Ugandan referral hospitals; 70% were P. thiaminolyticus. Improved diagnostics for neonatal sepsis are urgently needed. Optimal antibiotic treatment for this infection is unknown but ampicillin and vancomycin will be ineffective in many cases. These results highlight the need to consider local pathogen prevalence and the possibility of unusual pathogens when determining antibiotic choice for neonatal sepsis.