A longitudinal analysis of pneumococcal vaccine serotypes in pneumonia patients in Germany

Pneumococcal infections are globally the most frequent vaccine-preventable cause of death [1], and community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae is the main burden of pneumococcal disease in the elderly [2]. Since respiratory and blood cultures often remain negative in hospitalised patients with pneumococcal CAP due to prior antibiotic treatment, most cases are detected by the pneumococcal urinary antigen test (PUAT; BinaxNOW S. pneumoniae) [2, 3]. As the PUAT does not allow serotype discrimination, data on serotype distribution in adult non-bacteraemic pneumococcal CAP patients are sparse [4]. In Germany, the recently approved 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine had a substantially higher coverage against pneumonia in adults than the 13-valent vaccine, while the coverage gap compared to the 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine was small https://bit.ly/3q4skov