An overview of atypical bacterial in congenital pneumonia

Congenital pneumonia is one of the common causes of respiratory distress at birth with significant morbidity and mortality in infants. Estimates show that neonatal pneumonia including congenital pneumonia contributes to between 750 000 and 1.2 million neonatal deaths every year which accounts for 10% global child mortality. Etiological agents are many and vary but atypical bacterial causes are few. The commonest cause for atypical bacteria is Ureaplasma urealyticum. Congenital pneumonia is often clinically difficult to diagnose owing to poor specificity of clinical signs, with similarities in radiologic presentation with other respiratory conditions of the newborn. Isolation of causative organism (s) by culture from nasopharyngeal aspirates or tracheal aspirates obtained within 8 hours of life is the gold standard of its diagnosis. However, this technique is elaborate and time consuming in identifying atypical bacteria. Development of a more sensitive modality such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has dramatically altered the microbiological diagnosis of congenital pneumonia