Prevalence of group B streptococcus colonization in Iranian pregnant women: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is an important pathogen in newborns and pregnant women.

The present study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of GBS colonization in pregnant women in Iran.

This systematic review and meta-analysis was based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guideline using the national databases including Society for Information Display, Magiran, Irandoc, Iran Medex, and international databases including MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Science-Direct, Cochrane, Embase, Elton Bryson Stephens Company, Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Google Scholar, published by 01/30/2017. The I $$ index was used to measure heterogeneity between the studies.

In a total of 667 documents, 30 (4.49%) were selected. In this study, the prevalence of GBS colonization in 10090 Iranian pregnant women was calculated as 13.65% [confidence interval (CI): 95%: 10.56-17.45]. Based on geographic region, 24.63% [CI: 95%: 11.52-45.06] in the West and 8.75% [CI: 95%: 6.43-11.8] in the East were the highest and lowest areas in Iran, respectively, and were statistically significant (p = 0.001). Also, with regards to swapping sampling area, Vaginal with 11.96%, Vaginal and Rectal with 13.62%, and Anal and Vaginal with 25.63% were the least to the greatest, respectively, and were statistically significant (p = 0.001).

Therefore, based on the recommendation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as reported by the Ministry of Health and Medical education, early diagnosis, and screening of high-risk women should be done at 35-37 weeks of pregnancy.