Optimal vaccination age study published in Nature Communications

Congratulations to former MPRU PhD student Dr Deus Thindwa and colleagues on their recent publication in Nature Communications! Deus took a modelling approach to estimate the optimal age for vaccinating older adults against invasive pneumococccal disease (IPD). By combining routine IPD surveillance data from Brazil, Malawi, South Africa and England, population demographics data from respective countries, and pneumococcal conjugate and polysaccharide vaccine efficacy or effectiveness (VE) estimates from prior studies, Deus and colleagues find that the optimal age for pneumococcal vaccination varies with population age demographic, age-dependent IPD incidence and VE. Vaccinating adults from low- and mid-income countries early in older adulthood (55 years old) had the greatest potential for IPD prevention than is typical in high-income countries. Please read more at the publisher's site.