Shots for Pneumonia

When penicillin and other antibiotics were introduced more than a generation ago, doctors felt they had finally won the fight against the most common form of bacterial pneumonia. But the tiny spherical pneumococcus bacteria have proved a stubborn foe. They are showing increasing resistance to drugs of all kinds, and bacterial pneumonia is again on the rise; it takes an estimated 25,000 lives a year in the U.S. alone. The bacteria are also a common cause of damaging middle-ear infections in youngsters and meningitis--a dangerous inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

Now, just as the pneumococci seem to be gaining the upper hand, medical researchers have developed a powerful new weapon against them. Last week doctors at the University of California in San Francisco reported spectacular success in inoculating a group of 77 vulnerable youngsters with a prototype pneumonia vaccine. All had sickle-cell anemia, a genetic disorder largely confined to blacks that, besides inflicting other damage, impairs the spleen's ability to filter dangerous bacteria out of the blood. Even after two years, Dr. Arthur J. Ammann and his colleagues said, not a single patient had developed a pneumococcus infection; the only reaction from the shots in the arm was a little swelling and a short-lived fever.

The product of more than a decade of development by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the vaccine is made from purified bacterial antigens--the chemical keys by which the body recognizes invading germs and orders up antibodies against them. The variety used in San Francisco contained antigens from eight of the most common types of pneumococci. Other recent field trials have involved vaccines with as many as 14 different antigens. Surveying these tests, Dr. Robert Austrian of the University of Pennsylvania concludes that the vaccines are safe, at least 80% effective and apparently provide long-term immunity.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to authorize commercial production of the vaccine before year's end. At first shots will probably be recommended only for those at highest risk: people over 50, victims of chronic ailments, and those confined to crowded, epidemic-prone areas like military bases. But eventually, protection against bacterial pneumonia may become as common as vaccinations against smallpox. -

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.