A Vaccine-Preventable Infection -- So What's the Problem?

Pneumococcal infection, despite being largely vaccine-preventable, continues to cause pneumonic and systemic infection because effective immunization plans are rare. To explore ways of instituting an immunization plan at their inner-city hospital, investigators in Chicago conducted a retrospective cohort study. They compared the costs of and coverage provided by delivering pneumococcal vaccination to at-risk patients in the emergency department, the general-medicine clinics, and the inpatient medical wards.

They examined records for 300 patients with pneumococcal bacteremia for pneumococcal risk factors; 209 had had such risk factors during the 4 weeks to 5 years before their initial admission for pneumococcal infection. In addition to advan…