What is a vaccination against pneumococcus?
Vaccination is generally a preventive measure to avoid contracting a disease. Pneumococcus is a special type of bacteria that is the most common cause of pneumonia in the outpatient sector. In principle, it is therefore a preventive step that is intended to prevent one from contracting pneumonia in the course of the disease. With the vaccination, one tries to give the body “the building blocks” for special defense cells, so that it – in the case of an infection with pneumococcus – is quickly able to use the defense cells and so that a real pneumonia does not occur.
What does the vaccination protect against?
As mentioned above, the vaccination is mainly intended to help against the development of pneumonia. In addition, pneumococci can also be responsible for the development of meningitis, middle ear inflammation or sinusitis. The first two are potentially life-threatening diseases that often require intensive medical treatment, especially in people with weakened immune systems.
Procedure
Nowadays, pneumococcal vaccination is one of the basic immunizations for children recommended by the Permanent Vaccination Commission (STIKO) of the Robert Koch Institute. It is administered to children as an additional measure to prevent childhood diseases, if the parents decide to take it. In this case a dead vaccine is used, which contains components of the 13 most common types of pneumococcus.
Furthermore, the vaccination is recommended to persons older than 60 years of age. With increasing age, the strength and abilities of the body’s immune system diminish, so that a preventive vaccination can prevent severe disease progression. In addition, immunocompromised people – whether congenital or acquired – are among the patients who should be vaccinated against pneumococcus.
In an emergency, their immune system would not be able to deal with a massive bacterial infection either. The vaccination should also be administered to persons who are potential “carriers and multipliers” and who have frequent contact with humans. However, even more attention is paid to this aspect in the flu vaccination.
If an infection occurs, those involved can infect other people. Examples of these risk groups are cashiers, bus drivers, doctors and medical staff. The vaccination is given three or four times within the first year.
The above-mentioned basic immunization of the child begins with the second month of life (if it would be a live vaccine, it should be used from the ninth month at the earliest), in which the first of three doses is administered. The second dose is given at the age of four months and the third at about 12 months. If the child is a premature baby, the STIKO advises to administer a fourth dose of the vaccine to ensure adequate immunization.
This takes place at the age of about three months. Older people are advised to refresh their vaccination protection from the age of 60. However, a vaccine is now being used which no longer only covers 13 but 23 of the most dangerous pneumococcal subtypes.
These persons are only vaccinated once again. Continual booster vaccination at short intervals is not recommended unless there is a strict medical indication for it. Short intervals are defined as several years of vaccination at short intervals in succession.
There is no choice of injection between these two types of vaccine in the pneumococcal vaccination. At present only 2 inactivated vaccines are available on the market, but these are distributed by different manufacturers. The difference between these two vaccine types is, however, that the live vaccine still contains live but attenuated pneumococci.
The dead vaccine, on the other hand, is content with individual components of a bacterium. Thus, one can imagine this vaccine as a liquid with “hexed” pneumococci, so that no intact bacteria are present. Since the body’s own immune system is only able to identify a part of the bacterial envelope or an appendage of the bacterium anyway, a dead vaccine can also be sufficient.
Refreshing the vaccination is normally only recommended once, for people after the age of 60. This one-time booster is sufficient to prepare the immune system for several decades to prepare again for potential infections. In certain exceptional cases, a more frequent booster may be necessary for medical reasons.However, these are special diseases of the immune system.
General information about the vaccinations to be administered to adults can be found here: Vaccinations for adultsNo vaccinations should be given to children or persons who are ill at the time of vaccination. In this case it is strongly recommended to suspend the vaccination and to catch up on it at a later date. In principle, there is no contraindication for a vaccination, except in the case of allergies to a component of the vaccine. For persons after the age of two and before the age of 60 – provided there are no serious immune disorders – the vaccination does not have to be carried out, as the immune system is strong enough to cope with the infection itself during this time. For this reason, health insurance companies do not usually cover the costs of the vaccination for these persons.
