The COVID-19 pandemic increased the demand for pneumococcal vaccination in Japan

Akira Komori; Hirotake Mori; Toshio Naito

doi:10.1080/21645515.2021.1958612

The COVID-19 pandemic increased the demand for pneumococcal vaccination in Japan

Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2021 Nov 2;17(11):4673-4674. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2021.1958612. Epub 2021 Aug 6.

Authors

Akira Komori^{1

2}, Hirotake Mori¹, Toshio Naito¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of General Medicine, Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
² Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Tsukuba Memorial Hospital, Tsukuba, Japan.

Abstract

Although routine vaccinations in children decreased during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, pneumococcal vaccine coverage in older adults has remained unknown. This study was performed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pneumococcal vaccination in Japan. The numbers of 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines (PPV23) shipped was obtained from an office memorandum released by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The results showed that the COVID-19 pandemic increased the need for pneumococcal vaccination, causing shipping restrictions of pneumococcal vaccines. Regular vaccination is still important because there may be a shortage of vaccines during a pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemic; pneumococcal vaccination.

MeSH terms

Aged
COVID-19*
Child
Humans
Japan / epidemiology
Pandemics / prevention & control
Pneumococcal Infections* / epidemiology
Pneumococcal Infections* / prevention & control
Pneumococcal Vaccines
SARS-CoV-2
Vaccination

Substances

Pneumococcal Vaccines

Grants and funding

This work did not receive grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.