Pneumococcal infection causes approximately 40,000 deaths in the United States each year, accounting for more deaths than any other vaccine-preventable bacterial disease [1]. The highest mortality rates occur among the elderly, in whom the case-fatality rate for pneumococcal bacteremia is approximately 30% to 40%. It is estimated that approximately half of these deaths could be prevented throug...

To estimate the effectiveness of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, we serotyped isolates submitted to the Pneumococcal Sentinel Surveillance System from 1984 to 1996 from 48 vaccinated and 125 unvaccinated children 2 to 5 years of age. Effectiveness against invasive disease caused by serotypes included in the vaccine was 63%. Effectiveness against serotypes in the polysaccharide vaccine but ...

Streptococcus pneumoniae remains a leading cause of invasive infections including bacteremia and meningitis, as well as mucosal infections such as otitis media and pneumonia among children and adults. The 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) was licensed for use among infants and young children in many countries including Korea. The routine use of PCV7 has resulted in a decreased inci...

Pneumonia is the leading cause of mortality in children in developing countries and is also the leading infectious cause of death in adults. The most important cause of pneumonia is the Gram-positive bacterial pathogen, Streptococcus pneumoniae, also known as the pneumococcus. It has thus become the leading vaccine-preventable cause of death and is a successful and diverse human pathogen. The d...

AIM To establish whether universal vaccination of infants with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine is likely to be cost-effective from the perspective of the health care provider (NHS). METHOD Two hypothetical cohorts--one vaccinated and one unvaccinated--were followed over their lifetime, and the expected net costs and benefits (measured in terms of life-years and quality adjusted life years ...

The 7-valent pneumococcal conjugated vaccine (PCV7) has affected the genetic population of Streptococcus pneumoniae in pediatric carriage. Little is known however about pneumococcal population genomics in adult invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) under vaccine pressure. We sequenced and serotyped 349 strains of S. pneumoniae isolated from IPD patients in Nijmegen between 2001 and 2011. Introduc...

BACKGROUND Clinical symptoms and signs in acute otitis media (AOM) may differ depending on the various pneumococcal serotypes causing the disease. Alteration in clinical presentation of AOM could be expected after wide-scale pneumococcal vaccinations if there were considerable differences between vaccine serotypes and nonvaccine serotypes. METHODS In this study, data from 831 children in the ...

INTRODUCTION Streptococcus pneumoniae is a leading cause of severe bacterial infections globally. A full understanding of the impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) on pneumococcal disease burden, following its introduction in 2009 in South Africa, can support national policy on PCV use and assist with policy decisions elsewhere. METHODS We developed a model to estimate the national b...

BACKGROUND The characteristics, risk factors, and outcome of patients with nosocomial pneumococcal bacteremia (NPB) have not been described in large, population-based studies. METHODS All episodes of invasive pneumococcal infections reported by Finnish clinical microbiology laboratories (positive blood or cerebrospinal fluid culture) from January 1, 1995, through December 31, 2002, were linke...

Children with sickle cell disease were immunized with either 2 doses of 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine followed by 1 dose of 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine or a single dose of 23-valent vaccine. Functional antibodies to 7 vaccine serotypes were measured by a flow cytometric opsonophagocytic assay (OPA) and compared with IgG anticapsular polysaccharide antibody concentrat...