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Originally Posted by Funnygrl  That being said, I imagine the vaccine works against viral strains? I pretty much wanted to cut my chances at respiratory ailments any way I could, because I already have enough of those to deal with. |
Nope, the pneumo vaccine is not effective against viral pneumonia. Sometimes it's difficult to tease apart the different pneumonias because viral pneumonia can predispose you to bacterial pneumonia. So the pneumo vaccine won't help you at all with viral pneumonia but may prevent any subsequent bacterial pneumonia specifically caused by
S. pneumoniae.
Plus, the pneumo vaccine is only effective against the
Strep pneumoniae bacterium, not other bacteria that can cause pneumonia (of which there are plenty). There are >90 different strains of the
S. pneumoniae microorganism that can cause disease; the adult vaccine, PPV, contains 23 of the most common strains and the child vaccine, PCV, contains 7 of the most common strains affecting children.
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Originally Posted by JasonJayhawk Does anyone know the length of time that the Pneumoncoccal vaccination lasts after getting it? I see that it's part of the CDC's 2007 vaccination schedule for infants/children, so I'm curious if it's going to be more of a standard, and if it's just being "reserved" for certain populations. |
~5-10 years. I believe the current recommendation is if you get one before age 65, you should probably get a second one once you hit 65, as long as it's been at least 5 years. But for severely immunocompromised individuals (cancer, no spleen, etc), 2 doses are recommended, 5 years apart no matter what age (though not sure about the range for children).
It is part of CDC's
recommended immunization schedule for children in high-risk groups, but it is not mandatory, just like how it is for the rest of the population. At this point in time, I do not see it becoming mandatory because its use in the targeted high-risk populations is highly underused; so why try to introduce it to the general population if the high-risk populations aren't getting it?
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