Georgia

More than 500 000 lives in developing countries stand to benefit from the discovery of a vaccine that reduces the incidence of pneumonia in vaccinated children by more than 20%. This comes after scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand and Emory University in Georgia, US, found that a new version of a pneumococcal vaccine reduced the incidence of pneumonia in vaccinated children following clinical trials among 40 000 children in Soweto. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), pneumonia is the leading cause of death in children worldwide and is responsible for about four million deaths a year, most of which occur in developing countries. Although pneumonia has many different causes, the pneumococcus bacterium is the primary cause. Until recently, no vaccine was available to prevent pneumococcal disease in young children. In addition to pneumonia, pneumococcus can cause meningitis, ear infections and sinusitis. The universities said the vaccine reduced the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease by more than 80% in children not infected with the HIV virus and by more than 50% in those that were HIV-positive. The study was conducted under the auspices of the WHO and the Medical Research Council of SA and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which developed the vaccine. (Source: Business Day, 9 May 2002)