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Up to a million deaths each year among children five years and below world-wide, or a

devastating forty-nine (49) deaths every hour in the Asia-Pacific region is caused by

streptococcus pneumoniae.Streptococcus pneunomiae, or the pneumococcus, is a major cause of acute respiratory

infections (ARI) in the world. Pneumococcal disease includes bacteremia, meningistis,

pneumonia, acute otilis media and sinusitis. It is the leading raccine-preventable killer ofthe children worldwide. S. pneumoniae is a Gram-positive encapsulated organism and

differs from other bacteria in that it has several serotypes. Among the 90 identidies and

classified serotypes of this bacteria, 11 are responsiblefor the least 75 percent of invas ivepneumococcal disease (IPD) in all regions incidentally, thee severe forms of the disease

are found in poorer countries.

110 D is a severe pneumococcal disease that occurs when the organism is cultured from

the blood or the other normally sterile extrapulmonary sites. These include bacteremia ,sepsis, meningistis and bacterenic pneumonia.

Being a developing country, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) is yet to be included

in national immunization program (NIP). Significantly, the vaccine, as of 2008, is

available in 76 countries, and is now included in the routine NIPS of 17 countries in theNorth and Latin America, Europe, Oceania ang the Middle East.

As evident of its virulence, a group of health-care professionals in the Asia-Pacific is thefirst and only goup aimed focus resources on pneumococcal disease in the region. Dr.

Anna Ond Lim, a specialist in pediatric injections diseases at the University of the

Philippines, pushed for the inclusion of the pneumococcal anjugate vaccine (PCV) in the

national Immunization program during her speech at the first Curing Poverty throughVaccines.

The necessity of providing the vaccine to Filipino children lies in the fact that of all the

cases of streptococcal pneumonia in the world, the Philippines accounts for 10 to 15percent of all streptococcal-pneumonia-related deaths. The pneumococcus is also fairly

easily to transmit, usually by direct contract with respiratory secretions from both patientsand health carriers. When it finds its way in to the respiratory system, it can spread todifferent parts of the body, including the sinuses and middle ear, where it can cause

bacteremia see thee barriers are penetrated. Incorporating pneumococcal conjugate

vaccine (PCV) to the national immunization program will result to herd immunitywhen those were not vaccinated stand to benefit from reduction in the infection rates.

This phenomenon can be traced to the fact that S. pneumoniae is known to dwell in the

nasopharynx; introducing PCV as a part of the national immunization program will

amuse the decline of number of injected nasopharynges thus there will be finertransmissions then herd immunity. On the top of all these reasions on the importance of

PCV, overuse of antibiotics leads to increased resistance and threatens the effictiveness

of existing therapy for pneumococcal injections, which in turn increases the cost oftreatment by requiring the use of more expensive antibiotics. Steptococcus pneumoniae

was originally sensitive to penicillin, but it after more than a decade of penmicillin use

the world saw the first penicillin-resistant S. pneumoniae instead of being cured by the IVpenicillin, patients need to be treated by more expensive antibiotics such asceftriazone

which costs give to 10 times more than IV penicillin.

The relevance of this article to the public is that few people know about this killer disease

which causes approximately 1,176 deaths every day among Asia-Pacific children. A lot

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