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Pneumonia Research Paper

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Introduction
Pneumonia has been around for a very long time, killing millions of people every year especially in undeveloped countries. It’s a huge problem when it comes to infants and the elderly. African Americans suffer greatly from catching pneumonia because they don’t get vaccinated. Despite the disease being around for a long time and vaccinations being openly available it’s still the seventh leading cause of disease in countries like America and an even larger complication in undeveloped countries where healthcare is a difficult situation to tackle.
The bacteria that causes one of many different types of pneumonia that will be the focus of the paper is streptococcus pneumoniae. Streptococcus pneumoniae is also found in other diseases like meningitis, sinusitis, and middle ear …show more content…

They are usually found in pairs of cocci, or diplococci. Sometimes they appear in chains or in singles. They are non motile organisms meaning they're unable to swim or move on their own. There are over ninety different serotype of streptococcus pneumoniae which causes great difficulty when trying to develop a vaccine for this bacterium. If streptococcus is allowed to persist in the lungs it can invade the blood, which causes bacteremia. When in the blood it can cross the blood-brain barrier and infect the meninges, which could result in meningitis, sinusitis, and middle ear infection. Streptococcus pneumoniae is characterized by a polysaccharide capsule that completely encloses the cell, and plays a key role in it virulence. Streptococcus pneumoniae contains more than 500 different surface proteins. Streptococcus lacks the catalyst and ferments glucose to lactic acid, like most streptococci. Streptococcus pneumoniae gets a significant amount of its carbon and nitrogen through extracellular enzymes systems that allow the metabolism of polysaccharides and hexosamines, as well as cause damages to host tissues and enable

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