Polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccines

Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines do not protect the elderly from pneumococcal infections.

33 The decision by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1977 to license a pneumococcal vaccine containing 14 of the 90 known serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae was based on little evidence. 1 The only published trials of this product then available involved healthy people with unusual risks of pneumococcal infection: South African gold miners and people living in the New G...

Conjugate and Polysaccharide Vaccines Conjugate and Polysaccharide Vaccines, Plenary Review Meningococcal polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccines

Pneumococcal Capsular Polysaccharide Vaccine

Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus [Pnc]) is a common bacterial agent found in mild mucosal as well as severe systemic infections. Local infections, such as acute otitis media, are rather common; every child has at least one during the first 2 years of life (1), and Pnc is the causative agent in approximately half of the bacterial culturepositive cases (2). Pneumonia is another disease ofte...

Are the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines effective? Meta-analysis of the prospective trials

The objective was to review the evidence of effectiveness of the polyvalent polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine from prospective properly randomised controlled trials comparing pneumococcal vaccines with placebo in subjects who are immunocompetent and those likely to have an impaired immune system. Databases searched included the Cochrane Library, (issue 2, 2000), MEDLINE (1966-August 2000), Pu...

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines

To assess whether certain serogroups of Streptococcus pneumoniae are preferentially associated with specific disease manifestations, we analyzed all recent pneumococcal disease studies and assessed the relative frequency of isolation of each serogroup by clinical site (as a proxy for different disease states). In all age groups, serogroups 1 and 14 were more often isolated from blood, and serog...