This article refutes one popular-science review that has appeared on the MDedge news site in January 2020. It has stated that there was no effect of vaccination with 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) against invasive forms of Streptococcus pneumoniae in children with bronchial asthma. The author of this publication refers to the article «Asthma and the Risk of Invasive Pneumococcal Disease: A Meta-analysis» that described episodes of invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumonia development in children with bronchial asthma and in healthy children who was vaccinated with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine. It was concluded that the PCV-7 provides limited protection against colonization only with vaccine pneumococcus serotypes (according to the obtained data), and, thus, there was high risk of carriage of non-included serotypes in children with bronchial asthma (BA). The analysis of the article mentioned above has revealed that the representativeness of the data is extremely low. For example, the study groups were selected incorrectly, the PCV-7 administration scheme was not analyzed, whereas its violation may cause ineffective immunity development and as result disease development. Another crucial aspect is the lack of any data on the BA severity and inhaled corticosteroid therapy in vaccinated children. Nowadays, there are numerous scientific studies on the clinical efficacy of PCV in the prevention of IPD including the children with BA. Most world-class experts support the necessity of PCV-7 usage in children with BA for the prevention of IPD and suggest their patients over 6 years old on inhaled corticosteroid therapy to perform additional administration of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine.
The Analysis of Scientific Data on the Efficacy of Pneumococcal Conjugated Vaccine in the Cohort of Children with Bronchial Asthma