Isolation of Arcanobacterium haemolyticum from patients with pharyngitis in Belgium

During a 40 months period, 49 Arcanobacterium haemolyticum strains were isolated from 12,000 throat swabs of patients with pharyngitis originating from 5 belgian provinces. All strains were recovered on sheep blood Columbia agar plates, supplemented by nalidixic acid and colistin. In two thirds of the cases, pharyngitis was associated with a rash. Half of the cases occurred in the age group between 10 and 20 years and isolates were twice more frequent in females than in males. Streptococcus pyogenes was isolated 23.2 times more frequently than Arcanobacterium haemolyticum.