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Streptococcus pneumoniae is no longer an unknown entity. It is more commonly known as pneumococcus, and it is known to cause various diseases, including pneumonia, bacteraemia, otitis media, and the dreaded meningitis.

Despite hearing about the severity of the diseases pneumococcus can cause, many parents are still not trully aware of the consequences of these diseases, and fail to take the necessary steps to prevent their son or daughter from falling sick with a pneumococcal infection.

Meningitis, bacteraemia, and pneumonia can be fatal, especially if the child affected is less than two years old.

There are generally two types of pneumococcal infections; invasive and non-invasive. Invasive infections occur in the blood, or inside a major organ such as the lungs, and tend to result in serious complications. These include pneumonia, which is a result of the bacteria invading the lungs; bacteraemia, where the pneumococcus enters the blood stream; and meningitis, which is infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

Non-invasive pneumococcal infections may be less serious, but they occur more frequently. Pneumococcus is a common cause of middle ear infection (otitis media) in children. Other infections include sinusitis, which is an infection of the sinuses.

Look out for these symptoms, which could be signs of a dangerous disease:

Pneumococcal pneumonia: Severe shaking chills, high fever, cough, shortness of breath, rapid breathing, chest pain, nausea, vomiting, headache, tiredness, muscle aches.

Bacteraemia: Fever, headache, muscular aches and pains - could lead to septic shock, which is a sudden drop in blood pressure and can be life-threatening.

Meningitis: Severe headache, vomiting, high fever, stiff neck, sensitivity to light, confusion, sleepiness.

Otitis media: Ear pain , difficulty sleeping or responding to sounds, loss of balance, headache, fever, drainage of fluid from the ear, loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhoea, sore throat.

Sinusitis: Headache, facial tenderness, pressure, pain, fever, cloudy and discoloured nasal drainage, a feeling of nasal stuffiness, sore throat or cough.

Aidan's story

In some cases, pneumococcal disease such as pneumonia may not show any dangerous warning signs or symptoms. Safinaz, a mother of five, was shocked the day she discovered that her six-month-old son, Aidan Asyraf, was suffering from pneumonia.

"Aidan is usually sent to a nearby nursery when I go to work (as a lecturer at a local university). He was off colour with a slight fever, flu, and cough, over a course of three weeks. When he was down with a slight fever and flu, he would go to the nursery for two days, and then stay home for another three days. Having had four other children before him, I did not suspect anything was amiss when I took him to the doctor, who prescribed some antibiotics to treat his fever and flu," recounted Safinaz.

Aidan also suffers from asthma, just like his mother, and often used a nebuliser during the times he was down with flu and had difficulty breathing. However, his condition did not improve, and when he coughed, or breathed in, he did not have the usual wheezing sound asthmatics commonly make.

Furthermore, even with the nebuliser, his breathing did not seem to improve, which prompted Safinaz to take him to her paediatrician, as she suspected her son's condition was no longer a simple illness.

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