Nasopharyngeal carriage of Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes among sick and healthy children in northern India: A case-control study.

"Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Prof. Shally Awasthi reports financial support was provided by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."

"We acknowledge the time given and support provided by the local government, community and respondents who participated in this study. We also thank Dr. Samir Saha and his team from child Health Research Foundation, Dhaka, Bangladesh for providing technical oversight on this study. We are also acknowledging the conducive environment provided by the administration of King George‘s Medical University, Lucknow that facilitated implementation of this study. The authors would like to thank the state governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar for giving permission to conduct the study. The authors would like to thank the participating tertiary and secondary care hospitals for their contribution in this study. Members of the Lucknow Community-Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) Group: King George’s Medical University (KGMU), Lucknow, India: Professor Shally Awasthi, Department of Pediatrics, Professor Monika Agarwal, Department of Community Medicine and Public Health; Professor C.M. Pandey, Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics, Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India, Patna Medical College and Hospital, Patna, Bihar: Professor Neelam Verma and Professor Chandra Bhushan Kumar, Department of Pediatrics; Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital, Darbhanga, Bihar, India: Professor Chittaranjan Roy, Department of Community Medicine, Professor Kripanath Mishra, Department of Pediatrics; Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences, Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, India: Professor Pankaj Kumar Jain, Department of Community Medicine, Professor Rajesh Yadav, Department of Pediatrics. Funding The work was supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (https://www.gatesfoundation.org/) via Grant No: OPP1189869/INV-006521 KGMU. The funders had no role in the study design or implementation; data collection, management, analysis, or interpretation; manuscript preparation, review, or approval; or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication."