Vaccinating Children Benefits All


http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-01-14-prevnar-meningitis_N.htm

Kids' vaccine slashes meningitis

By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY
Meningitis cases have fallen sharply since the introduction of a
vaccine for children in 2000, a new study shows.
Rates of pneumococcal meningitis, an inflammation of the membranes
around the brain caused by bacteria, dropped 64% in children under age
2 from 1998-1999 to 2004-2005, according to a study in today's New
England Journal of Medicine. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention recommends the vaccine for children ages 2 months to 2
years, and for 2- to 5-year-olds who are at increased risk.

With fewer contagious babies to spread germs, fewer older kids and
adults are getting sick, says co-author Nancy Bennett, a professor at
the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Episodes
of pneumococcal meningitis dropped 30% in the overall population,
falling from 1.13 cases per 100,000 people to 0.79 cases per 100,000
people.

Even more impressively, cases dropped 54% in people over 65, Bennett
says.

This kind of "herd immunity" — in which vaccines protect even
unvaccinated people — is especially important in the elderly, Bennett
says, because youngsters can spread the bacteria that cause meningitis
in their grandparents. And this kind of meningitis is even more lethal
in adults than children. In her study, one in 12 children died from
their meningitis, compared with one in five adults.

Doctors already had noticed that the vaccine has reduced other
diseases caused by the pneumoccocal bacteria, such as blood
infections, says Janet Englund, a member of the CDC's vaccine
committee and a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital, who was
not involved in the study.

As with all vaccines, doctors don't yet know how long its immunity
will last, Bennett says.

Englund says the paper also spotlights a troubling trend: The kinds of
bacteria that cause meningitis are changing.

The shot, called Prevnar, protects against seven strains of
pneumococcal bacteria. But other strains not included in the current
vaccine — including some that can't be killed by standard antibiotics
— are now increasing, the study shows. Englund says doctors today are
already on guard for resistant bacteria, though, and often treat
patients with two antibiotics.

The number of meningitis cases due to these resistant bacteria is very
small compared with the large number of cases that the vaccine
prevents, Bennett says. Researchers are already developing vaccines to
protect against up to 13 strains of the bacteria.

.

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