Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jan 23;15(1):2.
doi: 10.1186/s41479-022-00103-3.

Incidence of pneumococcal disease from 2003 to 2019 in children ≤17 years in England

Salini Mohanty  1 , Bélène Podmore  2 , Ana Cuñado Moral  2 , Ian Matthews  3 , Eric Sarpong  4 , Alessandra Lacetera  2 , Nawab Qizilbash  2
Affiliations

Incidence of pneumococcal disease from 2003 to 2019 in children ≤17 years in England

Salini Mohanty et al. Pneumonia (Nathan). .

Abstract

Background: Pneumococcal disease is a leading cause of communicable disease morbidity and mortality globally. We aimed to estimate invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD), pneumococcal pneumonia (PP) and all-cause pneumonia (ACP) incidence rates (IRs) in children aged 0-17 years in England from 2003 to 2019.

Methods: A retrospective study in children ≤17 years old from 2003 to 2019 using the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Gold and Hospital Episodes Statistics Admitted Patient Care (HES APC) databases. IPD episodes were identified in hospital records (HES APC). PP (caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae only) and ACP episodes (caused by any pathogen) were identified in primary care (CPRD) and in hospital records (HES APC). Annual IRs by age-group were calculated as the number of episodes/person-years (PY) at risk, with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). Interrupted time series analyses were conducted to assess changes in IRs across the post-PCV7 (2007-2009), early post-PCV13 (2011-2014) and late post-PCV13 (2015-2019) periods compared to the pre-PCV7 period (2003-2005) using generalized linear models.

Results: 170 IPD episodes, 769 PP episodes and 12,142 ACP episodes were identified in 1,500,686 children in 2003-2019. The overall IPD, PP and ACP IRs (per 100,000 PY) were 2.29 (95% CI 1.96-2.66), 10.34 (95% CI 9.62-11.10) and 163.37 (95% CI 160.47-166.30), respectively. The highest IPD, PP and ACP IRs were observed in children aged < 2 years compared to older children (2-4 and 5-17 years). IPD IRs decreased between the pre-PCV7 period and the late post-PCV13 period from 3.28 (95% CI 2.42-4.33) to 1.41 (95% CI 0.80-2.29), IRR 0.28 (95% CI 0.09-0.90), p-value 0.033. PP IRs declined between the pre-PCV7 period and the late post-PCV13 period from 14.65 (95% CI 12.77-16.72) to 3.87 (95% CI 2.81-5.20), IRR 0.19 (95% CI 0.09-0.38), p-value < 0.001. ACP IRs declined between the pre-PCV7 period and the late post-PCV13 period from 167.28 (95% CI 160.78-173.96) to 124.96 (95% CI 118.54-131.63), IRR 0.77 (95% CI 0.66-0.88), p-value < 0.001.

Conclusions: The clinical burden of IPD, PP and ACP declined in children in England aged 0-17 years between 2003 and 2019, especially in the late post-PCV13 period. This study highlights the importance of PCV vaccination in reducing the burden of PD and ACP in children in England.

Keywords: Invasive pneumococcal disease; Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; Pneumococcal disease; Pneumococcal pneumonia; United Kingdom.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

This research was sponsored and funded by Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. OXON Epidemiology Ltd., Epidemiology & Statistics, Madrid, Spain, an independent contract research organization, was contracted to design and conduct the study. Salini Mohanty, Ian Mathews and Eric Sarpong are employees of Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, and may own stock and/or hold stock options in Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PP and ACP IRs (per 100,000 PY) by study year (2003–2019). ACP: all-cause pneumonia; PP: pneumococcal pneumonia; PY: Person-Years
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Factsheet about pneumococcal disease [Available from: https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/pneumococcal-disease/facts. Accessed 22 Nov. 2022].
    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Pneumococcal disease. Types of infection [Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/pneumococcal/about/infection-types.html. Accessed 22 Nov 2022].
    1. World Health Organization (WHO). Pneumonia. Key facts [Available from: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/pneumonia. Accessed 22 Nov 2022].
    1. GBD 2016 Lower Respiratory Infections Collaborators Estimates of the global, regional, and national morbidity, mortality, and aetiologies of lower respiratory infections in 195 countries, 1990-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet Infect Dis. 2018;18(11):1191–1210. doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(18)30310-4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Invasive pneumococcal disease. Annual Epidemiological Report for 2018. Surveillance report. In.; 2018.

LinkOut - more resources