WHO meeting sees top experts discuss pneumococcal disease

The need for an urgent and sustained effort to document the burden of pneumococcal disease formed the core of discussions amongst leading scientists attending a World Health Organization meeting this month. With pneumococcal disease estimated to be responsible for up to one million child deaths each year - local efforts to measure the scale of the problem in Asia are essential in preventing unnecessary child deaths from Streptococcus pneumoniae, a bacterium that causes pneumonia and meningitis.

Serious pneumococcal infections occur throughout life, but young children (especially those under two years old) and the elderly are at the highest risk for severe disease. Furthermore, over 90% of pneumococcal pneumonia deaths in children occur in developing countries, and pneumococcal meningitis kills or disables over 40% of the children who get the disease.

"Effective surveillance of pneumococcal disease and its serotypes is needed to accurately map the magnitude of the problem and help evaluate the impact of available vaccines," commented Thomas Cherian, coordinator ai, EPI+, Vaccines and Biologicals at the WHO.