Authors:
Snelling TL, McIntyre PB
Authors notes:
The Lancet Infectious Diseases 14(9): 780-781.
Keywords:
meningococcus vaccine, Pneumococcus vaccine, steroid, adjuvant therapy, bacterial meningitis, data analysis, diagnostic accuracy, Haemophilus influenzae type b, Neisseria meningitidis, outcome assessment, Streptococcus pneumoniae
Abstract:
In high-income countries serious bacterial infections such as meningitis are uncommon, but their severity has led to prompt adoption of vaccines for prevention and strong interest in which treatments provide the best outcomes.
Although conjugate vaccines were proven to prevent severe infection caused by Haemophilus influenzae type b and several pneumococcal serotypes in randomised clinical trials, the rarity of disease endpoints has thus far made similar trials of meningococcal vaccines infeasible.
Conjugate meningococcal C vaccines were first introduced in the UK based on protective immune responses, with adoption in several other countries.
The effect of new preventive or therapeutic interventions on the outcome of serious bacterial infections is important for governments and clinicians alike.
Assessment of these effects on the basis of hospital admissions, laboratory detection, and notifications is appealing but at minimum requires accurate, long-term baseline data against which to measure and compare the incidence after vaccine programmes are introduced.