Paper on vaccine type pneumococcal carriage in adults living with HIV published in AIDS

Congratulations to MPRU PhD student Deus Thindwa and co-authors on their recent publication in AIDS! Leveraging data from a cross-sectional pneumococcal carriage survey from Malawi, Deus and colleagues used a generalised additive modelling framework to model age- and time-dependent pneumococcal carriage trajectories for adults living with HIV (ALWHIV). ALWHIV are more susceptible to invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and carry Streptococcus pneumoniae at higher rates than other age-matched adults.

Modelling results indicate that ALWHIV living with young children benefit the most from indirect protection offered by the infant PCV vaccination program. By contrast, vaccine type carriage prevalence, and therefore risk of IPD, remains high in older ALWHIV who do not live with children. Targeted vaccination of ALWHIV, coupled with effective infant PCV schedules, should be considered to better manage pneumococcal carriage and disease in this vulnerable population. Please find the full report on the publisher’s site.