Vaccination and Revaccination with Polyvalent Pneumococcal Polysaccharide Vaccines in Adults and Infants

SummaryAdult persons developed substantial antibody increases against essentially all pneumococcal capsular types following injection of polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine containing 50 μg of each capsular polysaccharide per dose. Revaccination 13 months after the previous immunization did not evoke important further increases in antibodies and there was substantially greater local reaction at the injection site than when the previous dose was given. This finding appeared due to local reaction of antigens with circulating antibodies in the area of injection, since there was a correlation between the measured amount of circulating pneumococcal antibodies and the degree of reaction. Infants less than 2 years of age who were given a half-dose of vaccine generally responded poorly when compared with adults. In studies of 3- to 5-month-old infants, there was some increase _in antibodies when a booster dose of vaccine was given 6 months after the first. Very high level antibody responses against all capsular types...