However, PCV also

increases the colonization prevalence of non-vaccine serotypes (NVTs) – a phenomenon termed serotype replacement – leaving overall pneumococcal carriage prevalence virtually unchanged. PCV introduction into the routine pediatric immunization schedule in the United States and other countries has resulted in near-elimination of VT-IPD not only in infants (the age-group targeted for vaccination), but also in the unimmunized general population [8]. This indirect protection is a critical component of the vaccine’s public health impact. In the United States, it accounted for 69% of all IPD cases prevented in the first three years of licensure [9] and a 44–63% absolute decrease in pneumococcal pneumonia admissions in adults [10]. PCVs have Cyclopamine nmr now been incorporated into routine childhood immunization in 96 countries. Another 51 countries, many in the developing world, plan to introduce PCV in the coming years [11]. With demand

growing, multiple manufacturers are developing PCV products; licensing authorities have had to determine what data should support such licensure and be required for post-licensure monitoring. Disease endpoint trials are now difficult or impossible to conduct because of ethical considerations in placebo-control comparisons and sample size requirements in head-to-head trials. Licensure approaches are therefore anchored on correlations of immunogenicity to IPD protection established in the randomized controlled trials, and

immunogenicity non-inferiority measures in new PCV this website products [12]. Although this approach has a strong scientific basis and is accepted by the European Medicines Evaluation Agency, the United States Food and Drug Administration, and the World Health Organization (WHO), it lacks a crucial component: impact of pneumococcal vaccines on NP carriage among both the vaccinated and unvaccinated, and consequent effects on disease among the unvaccinated as well as the fully or partially vaccinated. NP effects may also prove an much essential component of the licensing approach for novel non-polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccines such as those based on pneumococcal proteins. Not only do vaccine products merit consideration from this perspective of impact on carriage, so do vaccine schedules; the number of primary-series doses and addition of a booster dose may affect the magnitude of the indirect effect. We posited the causal chain in the indirect effect paradigm as follows (Fig. 1): 1. PCV decreases VT-carriage prevalence and density in vaccinated individuals. Reduction in prevalence is achieved by reductions in acquisition rates and density, rather than reductions in duration of VT carriage [13], [14] and [15]. Evidence for the first link in this chain and for individual carriage as a precondition for pneumococcal disease is addressed elsewhere [16].