Within two years of the introduction of PCV10 in Mozambique, the percent of vaccinated children under five years of age with nasopharyngeal carriage of vaccine strains, declined equally in HIV-infected as in HIV-uninfected children. The vaccine-type carriage rates among both HIV-infected and uninfected vaccinated children after the vaccine was introduced were similar.
Pneumococcal nasopharyngeal carriage can be a precursor of invasive pneumococcal disease.
A small hospital-based study in India found that 6 month old infants born to HIV-infected women were 11 times more likely to lack measles antibodies than 6 month olds not exposed to HIV whether or not the exposed infants were themselves infected with HIV. The lack of antibodies in most HIV-exposed infants — making them more vulnerable to measles — may be due to lower levels of measles antibodies in HIV-infected mothers or to poorer transfer of antibodies to the fetus across the placenta.
Prior to the introduction of PCV, adults with HIV in a rural area of Kenya were nearly five times more likely to have pneumococcal pneumonia than non-infected adults, and the majority of cases with bacteremia (blood infection) occurred in HIV positive individuals.
A large randomized controlled trial of a pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in South Africa found that use of the vaccine prevented 10 times as many cases of pneumococcal pneumonia in HIV positive children than in HIV negative children.
