Tom Blackwell
National Post
06/05/2010
The bacterial pneumonia vaccine given to tens of thousands of Canadians a year appears to do nothing to prevent repeat, often-deadly episodes of the infectious disease, a new study concludes.
Far better immunization strategies are “urgently needed” to curb the number of deaths and illnesses from the pneumococcus bug, say the doctors from Nova Scotia, Ontario and Alberta who spearheaded the research.
As it is now, half of patients hospitalized for pneumonia die or end up in hospital again within five years from another bout of potentially preventable pneumonia or related disease — whether they got the vaccine or not, the study indicated.
Read the rest of the story.