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Key takeaways:
- The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unanimously agreed to recommend PCV20 for children.
- Advisors made four recommendations regarding the recently approved vaccine.
CDC advisors on Thursday unanimously supported the addition of Pfizer’s 20-valent pneumococcal vaccine as an option for children in the United States.
On the second day of a 3-day meeting — during which they also made recommendations for the new adult respiratory syncytial virus vaccines — members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted unanimously in agreement on four recommendations for the pneumococcal vaccine PCV20.
A CDC advisory committee recommended that Pfizer’s 20-valent pneumococcal vaccine be added as an option for children. Image: Adobe Stock.
Currently, infants and children aged younger than 2 years are recommended to receive PCV13 or PCV15 — the 13-valent and 15-valent pneumococcal vaccines — in a series of four doses between ages 2 months and 15 months.
PCV20 includes five additional serotypes — 8, 10A, 11A, 12F and 15B — not covered by PCV15. The FDA approved the vaccine for use in children aged 6 weeks through 17 years in April.
The first 14-0 vote by the ACIP recommended that either PCV15 or PCV20 be used for routine vaccination in children aged younger than 2 years.
The committee also recommended that healthy children aged 24 to 59 months and children aged 24 to 71 months with specified risk conditions receive either PCV15 or PCV20 as catch-up doses if they have an incomplete PCV vaccination status.
The ACIP said children aged 2 to 18 years with any risk condition who completed their pneumococcal vaccine schedule before age 6 years do not need — for now — a dose of PCV20 if their prior vaccine series included one or more doses of it, but should get a dose of PCV20 or PPSV23 — the pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine — if their previous vaccine series used just PCV13 or PCV15.
In the fourth unanimous 14-0 vote, the committee said children aged 6 to 18 years with any risk condition who have never had a dose of pneumococcal vaccine should receive a dose of PCV15 or PCV20, and if they receive PCV15, should get a dose of PPSV23 at least 8 weeks later if they have never previously received it.
According to an AAP summary of the meeting, ACIP chair Grace M Lee, MD, MPH, associate chief medical officer for practice innovation at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, said there were not enough data to determine whether PCV20 should be used as the preferred vaccine.
“In this particular situation, I’m actually in favor of vaccine choice,” Lee said, according to the AAP. “I do believe that implementation factors in the market will determine if there’s essentially a preference that happens over time, but I don’t think we have the data to make that determination today.”
References:
CDC. Pneumococcal Vaccine Recommendations. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/pneumo/hcp/recommendations.html. Accessed June 23, 2023.
Jenco, M. CDC panel OKs PCV20 for children, changes to flu vaccine precautions for people with egg allergies. AAP. https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/24881?. Published June 22, 2023. Accessed June 23, 2023.
US FDA approves Prevnar 20®, Pfizer’s 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine for infants and children. https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/us-fda-approves-prevnar-20r-pfizers-20-valent-pneumococcal. Published April 27, 2023. Accessed June 23, 2023.
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