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Children who miss PCV7 booster place adults at added disease risk
Children who did not complete the four-dose Prevnar 7 series put adults in their communities at greater risk for invasive pneumococcal disease, according to study results.
“Our analyses suggest that local variations in vaccine uptake among children might cause [pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)]-targeted serotypes to persist as causes of disease in adults when the uptake levels are not optimal,” Daniel M. Weinberger, PhD, of the department of epidemiology of microbial diseases at Yale School of Public Health, and colleagues wrote. “In locations where vaccine uptake is less complete … local variations in PCV uptake in children might influence the serotype distribution in adults and could influence cost-benefit analyses evaluating the use of PCVs in adults.”
Daniel M. Weinberger
Weinberger and colleagues analyzed ZIP code data from the Connecticut Immunization Registry and Tracking System on invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and of children immunized with 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, or Prevnar 7 (PCV7, Pfizer), from 1998 to 2009. They used logistic regression to estimate the number of IPD cases among adults aged older than 40 years and assessed the relationship associated with disease in relation to whether children received three or four doses of PCV7.
There were 5,838 cases of IPD reported; non-PCV7 serotypes caused 3,525 of these cases, and PCV7 serotypes causes the remainder.
In ZIP codes where a greater proportion of children did not receive the four-dose PCV7 series, a larger percentage of adults were diagnosed with IPD associated with the vaccine’s seven targeted serotypes.
“Our results would support the notion that the booster dose of PCV might have an additional benefit beyond that provided with three doses of vaccine in indirectly protecting adults against IPD,” the researchers concluded. – by Will Offit
Disclosure: Weinberger reports receiving salary support through an investigator-initiated research grant from Pfizer to Yale University for this study. He also reports being supported by NIH grants and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.