About the Authors

Marta C. Nunes

Affiliations Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa, Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Zachary Kuschner

Affiliation Stony Brook School of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America

Zelda Rabede

Affiliation Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Richard Madimabe

Affiliations Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa, Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Nadia Van Niekerk

Affiliations Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa, Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Jackie Moloi

Affiliation Molecular and Immunology Division, BioMérieux, Johannesburg, South Africa

Locadiah Kuwanda

Affiliations Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa, Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

John W. Rossen

Affiliation Department of Medical Microbiology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

Keith P. Klugman

Affiliations Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, Hubert Department of Global Health, Rollins School of Public Health and Division of Infectious Diseases, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Peter V. Adrian

Affiliations Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa, Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Shabir A. Madhi

shabirm@nicd.ac.za

Affiliations Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation: Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Johannesburg, South Africa, Medical Research Council: Respiratory and Meningeal Pathogens Research Unit, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, National Institute for Communicable Diseases: a division of National Health Laboratory Service, Sandringham, South Africa

Competing Interests

Jackie Moloi is an employee of BioMérieux South Africa. She is employed as an application specialist for the Molecular and Immunology Division. She does own any shares or stock in BioMérieux South Africa. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MCN KPK PVA SAM. Performed the experiments: MCN ZK ZR RM JM LK NVN. Analyzed the data: MCN ZK LK. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: NVN JWR JM. Wrote the paper: MCN KPK PVA SAM.