Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford, Level 2,
Children's Hospital, Oxford, UK. firstname.lastname@example.org
Polysaccharide-encapsulated organisms are the leading cause of
bacterial meningitis and pneumonia in children. The use of
protein-polysaccharide conjugate vaccines in developed countries
over the past two decades has markedly decreased the burden of
disease and mortality from these organisms through direct
protection of the immunized and through herd immunity. In the
next decade, the widespread use of conjugate vaccines in the
developing world should prevent millions of deaths. In this
Science and Society article, we describe how vaccine-induced
immunity wanes rapidly after vaccination in early childhood and
argue that strategies that sustain protection in the population
must be considered. PMID: 19214194 [PubMed - indexed for
MEDLINE]View More