Impact of pneumococcal conjugate universal routine vaccination on pneumococcal disease in Italian children

In italy,the effectiveness of pneumococcal universal vaccination in preventing vaccine-type invasive pneumococcal disease (ipd) in the pcv7/pcv13 shifting period was estimated to be 84.3% (95% ci: 84.0-84.6%) in children <5 years. this study aims at corroborating the estimation of both the effectiveness (ve) of pcvs and its impact in reducing pneumococcal diseases. a 1: 3 matched-case-control study was conducted among children <5 years old hospitalized for ipd or pneumococcal pneumonia (pp) between 2006 and 2012 in the puglia region. moreover,hospitalizations for pneumococcal outcomes in the pre- and postvaccination period and the hospitalization risk ratios (hrrs) with 95% cis were computed in italy and in the first eight regions that introduced pcvs in 2006. the overall effectiveness of pcvs was 75% (95% ci: 61%-84%); it was 69% (95% ci: 30%-88%) against ipd and 77% (95% ci: 61%-87%) against pp. pcvs showed a significant impact on ipd and acute otitis media either at a national level or in those regions with a longer vaccination history,with a nearly 40% reduction of hospitalizations for both outcomes. our findings provide further evidence of the effectiveness of pcvs against pneumococcal diseases and its impact on nasopharyngeal carriage in children <5 years,indicating the importance of maintaining high immunization coverage. © 2015 francesca fortunato et al.