In accordance with its mandate to provide guidance to Member States on health-policy matters, WHO is issuing a series of regularly updated position papers on vaccines and combinations of vaccines against diseases that have an international public health impact. These papers are concerned primarily with the use of vaccines in large-scale immunization programmes; they summarize essential background information on diseases and vaccines, and conclude with the current WHO position concerning their use in the global context. This document contains the following information related to Streptococcus pneumoniae: epidemiology of pneumococcal disease, the pathogen, pneumococcal disease, pneumococcal vaccines, PPV23, safety, immune response, efficacy and effectiveness, durability of immune response and duration of protection, cost effectiveness, use of PPV23 for influenza pandemic preparedness, maternal immunization, WHO position on the use of PPV23. Source: http://www.who.int/wer/2008/wer8342.pdf
- Position paper
- epidemiology
- health policy
