Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients have an increased rate of pneumococcal infections. Within the HIV-infected population, patients with low CD4(+) cell counts have a higher rate of pneumococcal infection. The purpose of our study was to determine pneumococcal carriage and to examine the serotypes carried by HIV-infected patients after the introduction of the conjugate vaccine....

Ontario has a single payer provincial health insurance program. Administrative data may provide a potentially robust source of information for post-marketing vaccine studies. Vaccine-specific immunization billing codes were introduced in 2011. Our objective was to validate Ontario's universal health care administrative datasets to assess infant immunization status. Electronic medical record dat...

Patients undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) are at increased risk for infections with Streptococcus pneumoniae and have long-lasting, impaired antibody responses to pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines. We examined whether donor immunization with a heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7) would elicit protective antibody responses to additional doses of vaccine adminis...

Salmonella enterica serovars Typhimurium and Enteritidis are the predominant causes of invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS) disease. Considering the co-endemicity of S. Typhimurium and S. Enteritidis, a bivalent vaccine formulation against both pathogens is necessary for protection against iNTS disease, thus investigation of glycoconjugate combination is required. In the present work, we in...

On December 13, 2007, Merck & Co., Inc. (West Point, Pennsylvania) announced a voluntary recall of certain lots of two Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) conjugate vaccines, PedvaxHIB (monovalent Hib vaccine) and Comvax(R) (Hib/hepatitis B vaccine). Providers should return unused vaccine from these recalled lots using procedures outlined on the Merck website at http://www.merckvaccines.com/PCH...

BACKGROUND Streptococcus pneumoniae is the main cause of invasive bacterial disease in children aged younger than 2 years. Navajo and White Mountain Apache children have some of the highest rates of invasive pneumococcal disease documented in the world. We aimed to assess the safety and efficacy of a seven-valent polysaccharide protein conjugate pneumococcal vaccine (PnCRM7) against such diseas...

BACKGROUND Otitis media with effusion (OME) is very common during childhood. Because Streptococcus pneumoniae is one of the most common bacterial pathogens involved in OME, pneumococcal vaccines may have a role in the prevention of recurrent OME. OBJECTIVE We sought to assess the effect of combined pneumococcal conjugate and polysaccharide vaccinations on the recurrence of OME. METHODS A ra...

Neisseria meningitidis group C polysaccharide-tetanus toxoid conjugate was prepared to obtain the polysaccharide component in a thymus-dependent form and to preserve the immunogenic properties of the tetanus toxoid component. Biochemical and immunochemical analyses of this conjugate revealed that (i) it was composed of equal amounts of polysaccharide and protein; (ii) the antigenic activity of ...

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 ...