About the Authors

Mark van der Linden

mlinden@ukaachen.de

Affiliation National Reference Center for Streptococci, Department of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital (RWTH), Aachen, Germany

Gerhard Falkenhorst

Affiliation Department for Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany

Stephanie Perniciaro

Affiliation National Reference Center for Streptococci, Department of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital (RWTH), Aachen, Germany

Matthias Imöhl

Affiliation National Reference Center for Streptococci, Department of Medical Microbiology, University Hospital (RWTH), Aachen, Germany

Competing Interests

MvdL has is member of advisory boards for, and has received speaker horaria from Pfizer, Merck and SanofiPasteurMSD. This study was in part funded by Pfizer Pharma GmbH and Sanofi Pasteur MSD Germany. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MvdL MI GF. Performed the experiments: MvdL MI. Analyzed the data: MvdL MI GF SP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MvdL MI GF SP. Wrote the paper: MvdL MI GF SP.