Wyeth vacc could save one child per hour in Latin America

Across Latin America, pneumococcal disease claims 18,000 lives every year and causes 1.6 million cases of childhood disease. New evidence presented at a conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil, showed an even greater vaccine impact than had been anticipated. In the USA, where a conjugate pneumococcal vaccine made by drug major Wyeth has been used since 2000, invasive pneumococcal disease has fallen 80% in children under five. Even more surprising, epidemiologists have found that this disease reduction in vaccinated children has had a large spillover effect, reducing vaccine-type disease in older adults 82%, according to Cynthia Whitney, of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Whitney noted that this herd immunity has reduced invasive pneumonia by half in babies under two - who are too young to be vaccinated. In Latin America, widespread use of the existing vaccine would save the life of one child every hour and cut the incidence of pneumococcal disease by almost half, she noted.