Vaccine can help close racial care gap

A vaccine that prevents pneumonia, meningitis and ear infections is reducing those conditions among black children and closing a long-existing healthcare gap, public health experts reported Wednesday.

Historically, the incidence of Streptococcus pneumoniae infections has been significantly higher in black children than in whites. The bacterium causes illnesses from pneumonia to blood infections. Some can be lethal.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention targeted children from 6 weeks to 23 months of age in seven states, putting an emphasis on black children. The idea was to determine if a disparity could be alleviated and several infectious disorders reduced.

The analysis, begun in 1998, demonstrated that something as simple as immunization can greatly affect public health in reducing disparities in medical care. Doctors administered a vaccine called Prevnar, approved for general use in 2000.

Before Prevnar, the infection rate among black children was 3.3 times higher than among white youngsters. By the end of the first round of the study in 2002, it was only 1.6 times higher.

“This is good news,” said Dr. Matthew Davis, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan. “The vaccine is reducing the overall burden of disease among children and adults.”

Dr. Brendan Flannery, the CDC’s lead investigator, said the rate of infection fell among adults because fewer children were passing along the disease. Nearly 16,000 children were vaccinated in the study. “This is an example of what we call herd immunity,” Flannery said. “It’s a result of having a lower chance of having someone transmit the bacteria to you.”