Health: Pneumococcal Disease

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Avebury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation in its review of the adult pneumococcal disease programme.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)]

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation concluded a review of the adult pneumococcal vaccination programme in 2012. The committee will begin the next review in early 2015, taking into account the latest information on the epidemiology, cost effectiveness and impact of adult pneumococcal vaccination. It is anticipated that the review will take six months to complete, subject to the availability of the necessary evidence.

[Lord Avebury (LD)]

My Lords, the JCVI looked at the situation in its June meeting and said that it would like to see the results of recent trials on the effectiveness of PPV in adults, but the subject was not on the agenda for the October meeting. Why are those trials not in the public domain? Since it is likely that the vaccination would be effective against the 5,000 cases diagnosed in adults every year in England, with some savings to the National Health Service, what steps are being taken to accelerate the introduction of the PPV vaccine?

[Earl Howe]

My noble friend is right to highlight the burden of disease caused by pneumonia in particular in the elderly. As I said in my Answer, what happened at the October meeting of the JVCI was an agreement that a pneumococcal sub-committee should be formed to fully consider the latest evidence on adult pneumococcal vaccination, including the evolving epidemiology of pneumococcal disease in the UK following the introduction of the conjugate vaccine into the childhood vaccination programme. In addition, the review will consider the latest data on the use of the conjugate vaccine in adults. This was discussed at the October meeting, the minutes of which are due to be published next week.