Pneumococcal pneumonia and meningitis cause about 1.6 million deaths each year, largely in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Most of the victims are children. But, there's a new vaccine with promising results. It was tested in Gambia on more than 17,000 infants from 2000 to 2004, and was nearly 80 percent effective. This could be a major breakthrough forward in public health.
"There was a 37 percent reduction in the incidence of x-ray proven pneumonia, " says the author of the study, Dr. Nathaniel Pierce from John Hopkins School of Public Health. "This is a remarkable and huge reduction."
This study is the first major vaccine trial in nearly 20 years to show a significant reduction in childhood mortality by a single vaccine. The vaccine had other positive effects also.
Dr. Pierce says, "The vaccine reduced admissions to hospitals - for any cause - by 15 percent, that is, approximately one out of every six admissions was avoided by a single intervention of this vaccine."
He also says the fact that the vaccine was able to reduce mortality among children in a rural African setting is important, because this shows it will probably be able to do the same in other parts of the developed and developing world.
