Abstract
Background: Most studies use indirect cohort or case-control methods to estimate vaccine effectiveness (VE) of 7- and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV7 and PCV13) against invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). Neither method can measure the benefit vaccination programs afford the unvaccinated and many studies were unable to estimate dose-specific VE. We linked Australia's national immunisation register with health data from two states to calculate IPD incidence by vaccination status and VE for a 3 + 0 PCV schedule (doses at 2, 4, 6 months, no booster) among a cohort of 1.4 million births. Methods: Births records for 2001–2012 were probabilistically linked to IPD notifications, hospitalisations, deaths, and vaccination history (available until December 2013). IPD rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated children 90% coverage in the first year of a universal 3 + 0 PCV program provided high population-level protection, predominantly attributable to strong herd effects. The size of the cohort enabled calculation of robust dose-specific VE estimates for important population sub-groups relevant to vaccination policies internationally.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2650-2656 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Vaccine |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 19 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 May 2018 |