Abstract
The pneumococcus remains an important cause of pneumonia, meningitis and septicaemia (Obaro & Adegbola, 2002). Concerns have been raised in recent years regarding an increase in the number of strains which have intermediate or complete resistance to certain antibiotics, particularly penicillin (Heath & Breathnach, 2002). Antibiotic-resistant pneumococci are mostly isolated from hospital-acquired infection or those individuals with chronic disease (Heath & Breathnach, 2002), and, in some countries, more than 20 % are intermediate or fully resistant to penicillin (Bradley & Scheld, 1997; Butler et al., 1996). However, the identification of antibiotic-resistant strains is important and the use of molecular typing methods is crucial to understanding their spread (Enright & Spratt, 1998). Here, we describe the isolation of antibiotic-resistant pneumococci in Scotland from two clusters of disease and the application of multilocus sequence typing (MLST) for clonal identification.