The study design and analysis controlled for influence of potentially confounding trends, such as improvement of day-care carriage and decreasing prevalence of smoking during the study period.
The study compares the incidence and serotype distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) for pneumococcal meningitis and non-meningitis IPD in children from 2007 to 2010 with reference to the pre-vaccination period from 1997 to 2001 in Germany.
This study found a marked reduction in vaccine serotype carriage after PCV7 implementation. The overall pneumococcal, H. influenzae and S. aureus carriage decreased slightly, but not significantly.