An Israeli health expert said preventing 19A serotype was an important factor to consider when using pediatric pneumococcal vaccines.
Pfizer Korea invited Professor Ron Dagan of Pediatrics and Infectious Diseases at the Ben-Gurion University to speak on the latest regional epidemiological data on pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) at Lotte Hotel in Seoul on Friday.
Dagan said pneumococcus in children is a major causative agent of invasive diseases such as bacteremia and meningitis as well as otitis media, and it is easy to misunderstand because the initial symptoms are similar to colds.
Pfizer’s Prevnar 13 is a vaccine indicated for active immunization for the prevention of disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae serotypes 1, 3, 4, 5, 6A, 6B, 7F, 9V, 14, 18C, 19A, 19F, and 23F
Highlighting case studies globally in the U.S., Belgium and the U.K. supported by long-term follow-up research data, Dagan emphasized the risk of pneumonia in children and the importance of preventing 19A serotypes based on a number of overseas regional epidemiological data.
In Belgium, the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease due to 19A serotype has increased since 2016. In addition, 19A serotype was the most common in New Zealand since 2019, and the incidence of 19A serotype continued to increase, and as a result of analyzing children with invasive pneumococcal disease born after 2008, 19A serotype was the highest at 76.3 percent.
The situation is no different in Korea. As a result of analyzing the distribution of serotypes in children and adolescents under the age of 19 diagnosed with invasive pneumococcal disease from 2014 to 2019, 19A serotypes accounted for about 10 percent of the total, the highest distribution among vaccine-preventable serotypes, and 10A serotypes were the most frequent among non-vaccine serotypes.
One of the areas to be considered in the prevention of pneumococcus is a regional epidemiological factor, and the distribution of serotypes in each region has important clinical significance," Dagan said.
The 19A serum type is the most commonly separated serum type found in the nasopharynx and the importance of preventing the serum type is emphasized in a number of guidelines not only in Korea but in other countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends choosing a pneumococcal vaccine in children under the age of 5, considering the characteristics of each country's vaccination program, vaccine supply status, price, regional serotype distribution and antibiotic resistance patterns.
While newer vaccines are being released with higher valences to account for more serotypes, he emphasized that Streptococcus pneumonia is a natural constituent of the nasopharyngeal flora and should not be wiped out completely with vaccines.
However, vaccines are key to deal with the resistant serotypes caused by wide spectrum use of antibiotics, he went on to say.
Dagan also described the Korean situation, saying that a decision was made by the government to use both PCV10 and PCV 13 which he admits is an alternative method to using PCV 13 alone on the basis that PCV 13 is used on the majority of children to confer herd immunity against 19A serotypes.
The Pfizer Vaccine Division team also shared that based on a recent epidemiology study, the10A also affects Korea the most after the 19 A serotype.
“We are doing our best to prevent pneumococcal disease in children through the Pfizer pneumococcal vaccine Prevnar 13,” an official at Pfizer Korea said.