TY - JOUR T1 - Introduction of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in an isolated pneumococcal vaccine-naïve indigenous population JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 1492 LP - 1496 DO - 10.1183/13993003.00890-2016 VL - 48 IS - 5 AU - Lilly M. Verhagen AU - Ismar A. Rivera-Olivero AU - Meyke Hermsen AU - María Carolina Sisco AU - Mailis Maes AU - Berenice del Nogal AU - Debby Bogaert AU - Guy A.M. Berbers AU - Peter W.M. Hermans AU - Marien I. de Jonge AU - Jacobus H. de Waard Y1 - 2016/11/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/48/5/1492.abstract N2 - The introduction of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) has the greatest impact in populations that are most affected by pneumococcal carriage and disease, such as indigenous children [1]. Although ∼10% of the South American population consists of indigenous people living in remote settings, to our knowledge PCVs have not been evaluated in native South American children. The Warao people are an Amerindian population residing in wooden houses along the Orinoco River delta in Venezuela. Almost one-third of Warao children die during childhood and respiratory tract infections are a major cause of death [2]. This study is the first to evaluate the impact of 13-valent (PCV13) vaccination on nasopharyngeal colonisation rates and antibody response in PCV-naïve indigenous South American children.PCV13 catch-up regimens for children aged ≥24 months may need to include more than one vaccine dose http://ow.ly/lstI3023i2RThe authors thank the participating families and the field workers involved in the recruitment and sampling of children, in particular the medical students of the Escuela de Medicina José Maria Vargas of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and Thor Küchler, Marcella Overeem and Stèphan Kraai (Laboratorio de Tuberculosis, Instituto de Biomedicina, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela and Laboratory of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Dept of Paediatrics, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands). Furthermore, we thank Jochem Burghouts (Laboratorio de Tuberculosis, Instituto de Biomedicina, Universidad Central de Venezuela and Laboratory of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Dept of Paediatrics, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences) for facilitation of study logistics. At the RIVM (National Institute for Health and Environment, Bilthoven, the Netherlands), we thank Irina Tcherniaeva for technical support. We are grateful to the personnel of the Laboratorio de Tuberculosis, Instituto de Biomedicina (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas, Venezuela), and we acknowledge Rogier Donders (Dept of Health Evidence, Radboud University Medical Centre) for statistics support. ER -