We hypothesized that following the introduction of PCV7, the exchange of vaccine serotypes (VST) for non-vaccine serotypes (NVST) in the nasopharynx has resulted in fewer episodes of pneumococcal acute otitis media (AOM) due to the reduced capacity for common NVST strains to cause disease. We modeled the change in the proportion of children colonized with S. pneumoniae who would develop pneumococcal AOM that would occur due to serotype replacement, and projected the future impact of PCV13. Our model is based on observed changes in the nasopharyngeal pneumococcal serotype distribution from the pre- to post-PCV7 era, and an estimated capacity of each serotype to produce pneumococcal AOM given colonization; the latter was derived by dividing serotype-specific disease prevalence by serotype-specific carriage prevalence in the same population. Our results indicate a 12% (95% CI 0.5-26) decline in the number of AOM episodes attributable to S. pneumoniae in children less than 3 years of age between 2000 and 2007 due to the combined effects of PCV7 vaccine efficacy and vaccine-induced serotype replacement, and predicts that PCV13 will further decrease pneumococcal AOM an additional 27% (95% CI 13-40) from 2007 to 2013. Evaluation of changes in VST disease revealed a 91% (95% CI 83-97) decrease in PCV7-VST AOM from 2000 to 2007, and predicted an additional 65% (95% CI 57-74) decrease in PCV13-VST AOM from 2007 to 2013. Our model indicates that following vaccination, nasopharyngeal replacement of VST by NVST has led to a decrease in the amount of pneumococcal AOM despite a consistent rate of S. pneumoniae colonization, and that pneumococcal AOM may continue to decrease as pneumococcal serotypes with greater capacity to cause disease are replaced by less locally invasive serotypes.
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