Kids' Pneumo Shots Cut Adult Disease Too

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Vaccinating young children with the PCV-7 vaccine against the strep bug that causes pneumonia and other serious infections has dramatically reduced rates of pneumococcal disease among older adults, new research shows.

The newer PCV-7 vaccine, used to inoculate children, was introduced in 2000 and was known to curb transmission of certain strains of the pneumonia bacteria.

To look into how that may have changed adult disease rates, Dr. Catherine A. Lexau, from the Minnesota Department of Health in St. Paul, and colleagues analyzed data from eight US geographic areas for the period from 1998 to 2003.

During the study period, rates of pneumococcal disease among people 50 years of age or older decreased from 40.8 to 29.4 cases per 100,000 people -- a drop of 28 percent -- the team reports in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Moreover, for adults 65 years of age and older, the rate in 2003 was 41.7 cases per 100,000, already reaching the US Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2010 goal of 42 cases per 100,000.

"Policymakers elsewhere who are considering whether to incorporate PCV-7 into their routine infant immunization programs and who are weighing its cost-effectiveness should consider the benefits seen in older adults," the investigators conclude.

"However," they point out, "it is unknown whether this herd effect will be similar in all settings and population subsets."

SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, October 26, 2005.