Just before turning off my computer last night, this story from USA Today flashed on the screen with the catchy headline: “Kids’ vaccine slashes meningitis”.
Reading the article, I was struck by not only how successful the 8 year old Prevnar, pneumococcal, vaccine has been for children as well as for society itself. Prevnar was developed to protect children against pneumococcal bacterial which can cause serious infections in children such as meningitis, sepsis and pneumonia. Given recent concerns over vaccine safety and schedules, the timing of these results couldn’t be better!
In our current immunization schedule, Prevnar is given to children at 2, 4, 6 and 12-15 months of age, as we do for the DTaP vaccination, and between 4-6 years of age for high risk children.
The data, published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, speak volumes for why vaccines are so important to the health of children and the public at large. Since the introduction of Prevnar in the childhood immunization schedule starting in 2000,
- cases of pneumococcal meningitis have dropped 64% in kids under 2 years of age
- cases of pneumococcal meningitis have dropped 30% for the general population and 54% for the over 65 population
- other non-meningitis pneumococcal illnesses have also decreased such as blood infections
The is a true victory for herd immunity and a wonderful example of why we need to work tirelessly to convince people that our current immunizations are safe and are much needed for children. Immunizations are not just for individuals; they are for an entire community and really do work that way.
Your post on kids vaccines is really helpful.
Thanks for posting.
Jane