Prevnar 13-does this imply 13 strains of bacteria at a time?

[emiree]

Comparing the old Prevnar to the new Prevnar 13...I understand that the vaccine is similar, but does the new vaccine still contain the older less common strains plus new ones for a total of 13? Or is the number irrelevant? Is this sort of like exposing a child to 13 illnesses at once or like doing mulitiple vaccines on one day?

[katelove]

Originally Posted by emiree

Comparing the old Prevnar to the new Prevnar 13...I understand that the vaccine is similar, but does the new vaccine still contain the older less common strains plus new ones for a total of 13?

Correct, it will contain 13 different pneumococcal serotypes (out of a possible 93 I believe). Not sure about "less common" though, the product insert for the Australian Previnar7 says that it contains the ones which account for 80% of pneumococcal infections

Originally Posted by emiree

Is this sort of like exposing a child to 13 illnesses at once or like doing mulitiple vaccines on one day?

It's a bit like both of those things. It is exposing the child to 13 different strains of pneumococcal, which is designed to stimulate the immune system as if they were exposed to 13 illnesses. It's sort of like doing multiple vaccines, in that you are vaccinating for multiple illnesses but, by using the combined vaccine then they are only getting *one* dose of proteins, carrier, aluminium. If you gave multiple different vaccines then the person would get mulitple exposures to the other ingredients.

[Dixielane]

So which is worse? Multiple exposure to 13 different bacterias (which isnt something that happens naturally), or the extra exposure to aluminum?

[katelove]

Originally Posted by Dixielane

So which is worse? Multiple exposure to 13 different bacterias (which isnt something that happens naturally), or the extra exposure to aluminum?

No idea I'm afraid. I might be inclined to think the aluminium is worse as it would certainly be possible to be exposed to 13 different bacteria in a day (although probably not 13 pneumococcal strains ). But that is pure speculation on my part.