Adult vaccination can cut prevalence of pneumonia: Study

Vaccinating against Streptococcus pneumonia during adulthood and tailoring vaccines to the strains of bacteria present in a community can reduce the overall rate of the prevalence of the disease, said a press release issued by the University of Helsinki based on the findings of a research.

The research into the effectiveness of vaccines has found that better strategies, including vaccination of adults and tailoring vaccines to the strains of bacteria circulating in a community are required to help reduce the rate of overall prevalence of the disease.

A team of researchers from the University of Helsinki of Finland, the Simon Fraser University of Canada and the Imperial College of London combined genomic data, models of bacterial evolution, and machine learning to predict how vaccines could be optimised for specific age groups, geographic regions, and communities of bacteria.

The study report, published on February 3 in the Nature Microbiology, considered in detail the serotype replacement process, which implies that when particular strains of Streptococcus pneumonia are eradicated by a vaccine in childhood, they can be replaced by other strains that could lead to higher rates of the disease in adults and also increase the rate of the disease in infants. Using predictive models, the authors concluded that vaccinating people in both childhood and adulthood would help reduce the overall rates of the disease.

“With the power of the latest DNA sequencing technology, we are heading towards a future where large-scale genomic surveillance of major bacterial pathogens is feasible. The approach we describe in this study will play an important role in accelerating future vaccine discovery and design to help reduce the rates of the disease,” said Professor Jukka Corander from the University of Helsinki, the University of Oslo and the Wellcome Sanger Institute.