Vaccine that was designed to combat several pneumococcal diseases like meningitis and pneumonia performs an additional function of preventing chronic ear infection, thereby cutting down the need for ear tube surgery which has become quite common. These vaccines are given at 2, 4 and 6 months of age. The vaccine also prevents repeated infections that occur 3 or 4 times a year. It reduces the frequency of infection by 28 percent.

“The pneumococcal conjugate vaccine has been very successful in combating serious infections in children and is also giving benefits in terms of reducing ear infections and the need for tube surgery,” said Dr. Katherine Poehling, a pediatrician at Brenner Children’s Hospital at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae which are responsible for diseases like meningitis and pneumonia, are also the cause for ear infections. The vaccine acts by fighting against these bacteria thereby reducing the risk of ear infection. The vaccine has gone a step ahead from what it is supposed to serve. Since the introduction of Pneumococcal vaccine, the frequency of ear infections and the number of children who received ear tubes below the age of 2 declined to 25 percent in New York.