Group vaccinations help prevent pneumonia
Even if you are not vaccinated against a particular illness, you might still be protected, as long as your friends are. This idea, known as herd immunity to infectious disease specialists, is the premise for mass-vaccination campaigns: If enough people are vaccinated, bacteria and viruses will have a hard time spreading, because they will not find people to infect.
A study done by Katherine O'Brien, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, shows that indirect immunity, or herd immunity, significantly decreases the rate of a pneumococcal disease spreading among American Indians living on the Navajo and White Mountain Apache reservations.
Pneumoccus is a common bacterium that causes pneumonia and other ailments. Before the pneumococcal vaccine (PCV) became widely available in 2000, pneumococcal disease was a major cause of pneumonia, meningitis, ear infections and blood stream infections, particularly in children and the elderly.
"Navajo and White Mountain Apache are known to have had high rates of pneumococcal disease compared with the general U.S. population prior to the introduction of PCV," O'Brien said.?"We only work on diseases of specific relevance to the tribes."
O'Brien's current study was carried out in the wake of a separate long-term study of the efficacy of the pneumococcal vaccine among the Navajo and White Mountain Apache tribes. In the previous study, PCV was administered to one group of children and meningococcal vaccine (MCC) was administered as a control to another group of children. O'Brien then tested the family and household members of the two different groups for colonization - an infection that may or may not cause symptoms - by pneumococcal bacteria.
"We had two major findings. The risk of carrying a vaccine serotype pneumococcal strain was 43 percent lower among adults living with PCV-vaccinated children than adults living with children who had not received PCV," O'Brien said.
"Even if a child carries a vaccine serotype strain, the likelihood ?that an adult will also carry that strain is reduced among the households where the children were vaccinated with PCV than in households where the children have not received PCV."
A study done by Katherine O'Brien, an associate professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, shows that indirect immunity, or herd immunity, significantly decreases the rate of a pneumococcal disease spreading among American Indians living on the Navajo and White Mountain Apache reservations.
Pneumoccus is a common bacterium that causes pneumonia and other ailments. Before the pneumococcal vaccine (PCV) became widely available in 2000, pneumococcal disease was a major cause of pneumonia, meningitis, ear infections and blood stream infections, particularly in children and the elderly.
"Navajo and White Mountain Apache are known to have had high rates of pneumococcal disease compared with the general U.S. population prior to the introduction of PCV," O'Brien said.?"We only work on diseases of specific relevance to the tribes."
O'Brien's current study was carried out in the wake of a separate long-term study of the efficacy of the pneumococcal vaccine among the Navajo and White Mountain Apache tribes. In the previous study, PCV was administered to one group of children and meningococcal vaccine (MCC) was administered as a control to another group of children. O'Brien then tested the family and household members of the two different groups for colonization - an infection that may or may not cause symptoms - by pneumococcal bacteria.
"We had two major findings. The risk of carrying a vaccine serotype pneumococcal strain was 43 percent lower among adults living with PCV-vaccinated children than adults living with children who had not received PCV," O'Brien said.
"Even if a child carries a vaccine serotype strain, the likelihood ?that an adult will also carry that strain is reduced among the households where the children were vaccinated with PCV than in households where the children have not received PCV."
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