The scope for pneumococcal vaccines that do not prevent transmission

Publication date: 27 October 2017
Source:Vaccine, Volume 35, Issue 45
Author(s): Stefan Flasche
The pneumococcal vaccine pipeline holds candidates developed with the aim to prevent the majority if not all pneumococcal disease. Herd protection is a critical component of the overall impact of current pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) and is a prerequisite for disease elimination through an infant vaccination programme. We assessed the scope of a hypothetical pneumococcal vaccine candidate (HPVC) with high clinical efficacy against all pneumococci but that fails to induce such indirect protection. We found that, despite a lack of impact on unvaccinated individuals, HPVC use in infancy may offer similar or superior impact among young children if compared to current PCVs. Hence, it could provide a more affordable alternative to PCVs in particular in settings where most pneumococcal disease is concentrated in children.



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