Pneumococcal vaccines: Brands, manufacturers, and age indications

The pneumococcus: A condensed overview Streptococcus pneumoniae is a Gram-positive diplococcus whose polysaccharide capsule — detectable via the Quellung reaction — is both its main virulence factor and the target of all licensed vaccines. Over 100 serotypes exist, but only a subset drives most disease. Pneumococcus is the leading bacterial cause of invasive disease worldwide: bacteremia, meningitis (>50% of U.S. bacterial meningitis cases), and bacteremic pneumonia. It also drives non-invasive disease — community-acquired pneumonia, otitis media, and sinusitis — contributing to roughly 1.6 million deaths globally each year, 1 million in children under five. PCV7 (2000) and PCV13 (2010) transformed this burden. U.S. pediatric invasive disease fell 95% between 1998 and 2021, averting an estimated 282,000 cases, including 16,000 meningitis and 172,000 bacteremia cases. Critically, indirect protection extended to unvaccinated adults: in Germany, the share of adult invasive disease caused by PCV13 serotypes fell from ~75% to ~30% after pediatric rollout, with similar...