Stveptococctrs prieumoniae is an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide [l]. Its main reservoir is the nasopharynx. From the nasopharynx, the organism can: (1) enter the bloodstream to cause invasive infections such as sepsis, meningitis and infections in remote foci such as arthritis, osteoniyelitis and cellulitis; (2) spread to adjacent mucosal tissues to cause mucosal infections such as otitis, sinusitis and pneumonia; and (3) be transmitted by direct contact and through aerosols to other individuals. Many individuals in a population are colonized with S. pneumoniae at any given time, and most children are colonized at some point during the first years of life [2-41. Resistance of piieumococci to antimicrobial agents, which was first reported in the mid-1960s [5,6], is increasing worldwide and has an enormous impact on clinicians, microbiologists, drug manufacturers, and public-health authorities [7,8-3 01. Antibiotic-resistant pneumococci are more often carried by infants and young children than by adults [ll-131. Furthermore, since most of the resistant strains belong to only a limited number of serotypes, which are also among the most common causes of pediatric infections [7,14-171, conjugate vaccines aimed at these antigens may provide a useful tool to reduce nasopharyngeal carriage and liniit the spread of resistant pneumococci. The goal of this communication is to describe the carriage of antibiotic-resistant S. pneumoniae in children in southern Israel and to review the current experience of the effect of the new conjugate pneumococcal vac-