Risk of Heart Attack, Stroke in Men Not Cut By Pneumonia Vaccine

Men, at 45 and above, who received pneumococcal vaccine, had an equal risk of a heart attack or stroke, as that of those who did not receive the vaccine, a study has revealed.

A recent study has revealed that men, 45 years and above, do not benefit when it comes to reducing their risk of heart attack or stroke after a jab of the pneumococcal vaccine. Their risk remains the same as those not vaccinated.

Dr. Hung Fu Tseng, of Kaiser Permanente Southern California, Pasadena, and colleagues conducted a study to examine the association between vaccination with pneumococcal vaccine and the risk of developing acute heart attack and stroke in men.

Hib Vaccine - Types, Dosage Schedule, Contraindications and Side Effects
The Hib vaccine protects children against infections like meningitis and pneumonia that are caused by the Haemophilus influenzae type b bacterium.

They took into account known and potentially important confounders (factors that can influence a study, leading to unexpected outcomes that improperly skew the results).

The study included Kaiser Permanente Northern and Southern California health plans, with 84,170 participants ages 45 to 69 years from the California Men's Health Study, who were recruited between January 2002 and December 2003, and followed up until December 31, 2007.

The cohort was similar to the population of health plan members and men who responded to a general health survey in California on important demographic and clinical characteristics.

Pneumonia - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, Prevention, Complications
Pneumonia is a lung infection that can be caused by a bacteria or a virus. It causes inflammation of the alveoli or the air sacs of the lungs.

Demographic and detailed lifestyle characteristics were collected from surveys. Vaccination records were obtained from the Kaiser Immunization Tracking System.

During follow-up, there were 1,211 first myocardial infarctions (MIs; heart attack) in vaccinated persons (rate of 10.7 per 1000 person-years) compared with 1,494 first MI events in unvaccinated individuals (6.07 per 1000 person-years).

Promotion of Pneumococcal Vaccine Slow in Europe
Although 90 per cent of cases of invasive pneumococcal diseases occur in healthy young children many European countries still only vaccinate selected at-risk groups against IPD.

For stroke, there were 651 events in vaccinated persons (5.3 per 1000 person-years) compared with 483 events in unvaccinated persons (1.9 per 1000 person-years).

Pneumococcal Vaccine: Childhood Immunization Programme has a new recruit
The chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, has announced the introduction of the routine pneumococcal vaccine into the childhood immunization programme

After analysis of the data, the researchers found no evidence for an association between pneumococcal vaccination and reduced risk of acute MI or stroke.

"In addition, association was not observed either in the current smokers, men with history of diabetes, men with history of hypertension, or men of the low-risk group," said Tseng.

The study has been published in the latest issue of JAMA.

Source-ANI
TAN