Recently it has appeared in the Pediatric Primary Care Magazine, an official publication of the Spanish Association of Primary Care Pediatrics, an interesting article that raised precisely the question of to what extent the pneumococcal vaccine is effective, especially in its heptavalent version, which has been used until recently.
The answer of the study is that doubts should be raised about whether this vaccine is the best way to fight against the pneumococcus since there are many serotypes for which it does not protect and its introduction agrees with an increase in cases for various reasons that are analyzed in detail.
To carry out their study, specialists have gone to the literature search in MEDLINE and have reviewed the published articles on the evolution of pneumococcal disease after the introduction of the pneumococcal conjugate heptavalent vaccine. Likewise, they reviewed the Epidemiological Bulletins of the Carlos III Health Institute and analyzed the data related to invasive pneumococcal disease, as well as those referring to the incidence of pneumococcal meningitis and parapneumonic pleural effusions.
This vaccine, which has been used in its heptavalent formulation with little result and is currently also available in a 10-valent version, with the commercialization of 13-valent being planned for this year, aims to reduce the risk of infection in diseases derived from Pneumococcal infections: bacteremias, meningitis and pneumococcal pleural effusions.
However, the data are not positive so far, since infections have not been reduced and their effectiveness, due to the variety of serotypes or the low vaccination rate, has not been sufficient in the opinion of these authors according to official data.
The authors' conclusion is that pediatricians should offer complete information to parents about the real effectiveness of the protection of pneumococcal vaccines, especially in the heptavalent version, recommending a deeper analysis of the recommendation of the versions that include more serotypes.
