Journal of Vaccines & Vaccination

Pneumococcal Vaccination for Elderly- Is India Ready?

5^th Asia Pacific Global Summit and Expo on Vaccines & Vaccination

July 27-29, 2015 Brisbane, Australia

Yashaswi Gupta

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: J Vaccines Vaccin

Abstract:

The last Indian Census Report 2011 has put India?s population as 1.21 billion and the number of elderly (60+) at 98.5 million. Despite India?s rapid economic growth, health condition of a majority of older Indians remains poor. Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly among elderly in India. Although vaccination is the mainstay of preventative therapy, Association of Physicians in India does not recommend use of vaccines on a routine basis due to insufficient data on safety, efficacy or effectiveness. Currently two types of pneumococcal vaccines are availablepneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) and pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23). PCV13 offers better efficacy against pneumococcal pneumonia and significantly reduces burden of disease. Hence, new ACIP recommendations strongly support usage of PCV13 as a routine vaccine in the adults. However, routine PCV13 administration is not likely to be costeffective in India because of high cost of the vaccine. Studies have shown that PPSV23 offers considerable efficacy against Invasive Pneumococcal Disease (IPD) and covered more than 80% of the serotypes identified in Indian adults. Since Indian elderly are more prone to develop IPD, it would be beneficial to increase the use of PPSV23 in elderly. Furthermore, dedicated research is needed to resolve the issue of cost effectiveness offered by these vaccinations. Unless comprehensive evidence is obtained on the vaccine?s efficacy in elderly, policy-makers in India will remain reluctant to admit PPSV23 as a cost-saving strategy in the context of mass vaccination program.