Results
Incidence During the study period, there were 143,750 deliveries, 66 women identified with group A streptococci–positive in pregnancy or post-partum. Of these 57 cases of puerperal GAS-, 42 (73.1%) delivered vaginally, 5 (8.7%) by instrumental vacuum extraction, and 10 (26.3%) by caesarean delivery. Nine women (13.6%) diagnosed with septic abortions and had undergone dilation and curettage during their first and early second trimesters. During the study period, there was an incidence of one puerperal GAS infection per 2521 deliveries (0.04%) during the 12.5-year study period. Fifteen GAS-infected women were treated with antibiotics by routine protocols during labour: specifically, nine women during a caesarean delivery, three because of a GBS-positive test result, and three others due to a fever during labour. Most of the identified cases of infection occurred between October–April (n = 52, 78.7%) compared to the period between May–September (n = 14, 21.2%,P = 0.0001) (Table 1).