The incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease has significantly decreased with the use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines. Although 82% of US children 19 to 35 months of age have received 4 or more PCV vaccines, infections caused by vaccine serotypes still occur. However, greater than 70% of current invasive disease is caused by nonvaccine serotypes in the United States, and there is an increased risk in healthy young children and children with underlying medical conditions for nonvaccine serotype pneumococcal infections.
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Streptococcus pneumoniae continues to be the most common cause of vaccine-preventable death in children worldwide. Pneumococcal infections were responsible for an estimated 318,000 deaths (uncertainty range [UR], 207,000–395,000) among children younger than 5 years globally in 2015. (1) Pneumococcal pneumonia deaths accounted for 81% of the total pneumococcal deaths. (1) The 2015 global estimates of clinical pneumococcal pneumonia,...
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