Heo JY, Seo YB, Choi WS, et al. - A high disease burden of pneumococcal pneumonia has been observed despite utilization of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) and 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) over the last decade. Findings from this study suggest that administration of sequential PCV13/PPSV23 vaccination results in most effective prevention of pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in older adults (aged 65–74 years).

• In this prospective multicenter study, vaccine effectiveness (VE) against pneumococcal CAP was estimated by using the case-control test-negative design.

• A total of 1,525 cases with hospitalized CAP were assessed; pneumococcal CAP was detected in 167 of these patients (11.0%).

• In the elderly aged ≥ 65 years, statistically insignificant adjusted VE of pneumococcal vaccines was observed against pneumococcal CAP.

• However, in the younger subgroup (aged 65–74 years), the highest adjusted VE of 80.3% was recorded with sequential PCV13/PPSV23 vaccination, followed by single-dose PCV13 and PPSV23.