Our study provided an extensive and original picture of virulence genes carried by French and African S. pneumoniae invasive isolates and demonstrated that most of studied genes, as well as the ply allele 5, were carried by the invasive Sp1 ST306 clone but were lacking on the Sp 1 isolates circulating in the African meningitis belt where a more serious pattern of infection was observed. Here, SP1 is linked to meningitis.