The clinical, epidemiological and aetiological pattern of pneumonia among children admitted to hospital in Kenya after the introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV): implications for management guidelines
Description: In developing countries the dominant causes of severe inpatient pneumonia in children are H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae. In Kenya, Hib conjugate vaccine was introduced in 2001 and Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) will be introduced within the next year. These will substantially reduce the incidence of bacterial pneumonia in children. The remaining cases will have a more diverse aetiology and standard treatment guidelines may become ineffective. This project examines the effect of PCV introduction on the pattern of clinical pneumonia among children admitted to hospital and provides relevant data on hospital burden, clinical severity, aetiology and treatment failure rates to support revision of treatment guidelines in Kenya. To achieve this, we will examine pneumonia aetiology in the year after PCV introduction using blood, induced sputum and lung-aspirate cultures, mycobacterial cultures, and serology and PCR for viral and atypical agents. We will examine severity on admission and clinical failure rates following standard treatment and combine clinical and aetiological data to provide a comprehensive description of pneumonia in the post-vaccine era. This will be contrasted withsimilar data currently being collected in the pre-vaccine era. We anticipate that this analysis will be of value to derive new treatment guidelines for pneumonia in Kenya.
Funder: Wellcome Trust
Amount: £130,300
Funding type: fellowship
Funder scheme: International Masters Fellowship
Start date: 2009-09-01
End date: 2012-02-29
Investigator: Dr Nahashon M Thuo
Institution: Kemri-Wellcome Trust Research Programme
Funded outputs count: 2
Funder award ID: 089353/Z/09/Z
OpenAlex ID: G7995417409