Community vaccination effort linked to 25% drop in pneumonia-related mortality among the elderly

A research team has evaluated the influence of the actual world of a community-based pneumococcal vaccination aid program for older adults held in Sera Town, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.

Their work is published Epidemic journal,

Pneumonia is one of the major causes of death in Japan. About 74,000 people die every year Pneumonia 98% of these deaths occur in people aged 65 years and above. Bacteria Streptococcus pneumonia is the primary cause of pneumonia.

In October 2014, Japan launched a nationwide regular vaccination program for the elderly under the National Immunization Program with the 23-Valent Pneumococcal Polysacharide Vaccurreide Vaccurreide Vaccurrect Vaccurrect.

Sera Town, a hill municipality in East Hiroshima province, jointly planned and implemented a pneumococcal vaccination assistance program with a research team at Hiroshima University in October 2010 – before nationwide rollout.

The goal was to promote the program, which lasted till March 2015 community Health And provided PPSV23 vaccination to all residents aged 65 years and above. The vaccine used in the project was approved for elderly persons in Japan at that time.

As part of this collaborative initiative, a five -year follow -up survey was conducted to assess the preventive effect of the vaccine against pneumonia.

“In particular, we demanded to understand the impact of PPSV23 vaccine Pneumonia incident and mortality Elderly population In a rural setting with a high -aged rate, “Aya Sugiyama said, an epidemic disease control and graduate school of biomedical and health sciences, a lecturer in the Department of Prevention at Hiroshima University.

Residents of Sera Town, who participated in the project, were 84 years of age at the age of 70 to 114 years.

To assess changes in mortality after the introduction of the vaccination program, researchers collected demographic data From 2000 to 2016 from important data from Japan.

They implemented a interrupted time chain analysis to determine the level and trend changes Death rate Over time, over and after the commencement of the vaccination project in the city, viewing the mortality rate.

The purpose of the study is to generate real-world evidence on the effectiveness of vaccination aid programs in super-age class societies.

Their analysis of data showed that pneumococcal vaccination aid for old residents in Sera Town was associated with a 25% decrease in mortality related to pneumonia. “In particular, it reversed the growing trend in the pneumonia mortality in the community,” Sugiama said.

Studies also provided valuable data on actual pneumonia amid vaccination Old adultWith the incident rate of 20.3 cases per 1,000 persons. Scientific studies use the individual-year method where they follow individuals over time. One person-year is being followed by a person for one year.

Sugiyama said, “These findings underline both the burden of pneumonia in the public health importance and aging population of local vaccination efforts.”

The research team sees particularly relevant conclusions for Japan, which has the largest population in the world. “With the completion of this evaluation, the next step is to share these conclusions to inform future discussions on community-based vaccination strategies,” Sugiama said.

“While further research is required, we hope that our results will serve as a reference for areas discovering an effective approach to the prevention of pneumonia in older adults.”