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OM Vaccination

Children in the U.S. are routinely administered the following vaccinations before age 6 years:

The efficacy of the Pneumococcal conjugate (PCV7) to reduce the instance of AOM has been demonstrate in several studies:

A study by Northern California Kaiser Permanente demonstrated that the Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine PCV7 reduced the episodes of AOM. The study found modest reductions in frequency of office visits, antibiotic perscriptions and myringotomy with tube placement surgery associated with AOM.
A study by Block et al. found that in children <2, suffering from severe or refractory AOM, the proportion of S. pneumoniae AOM was reduced by 17% after community wide vaccination. They also found a significant reduction in penicillin-nonsusceptible Streptococcus pneumoniae
Pelton et al. found that in the children studied, nasopharyngeal colonization with vaccine serotypes declined from 22% to 2%
Oosterhuis-Kafeja F et al. present a review of literature (1998-2006) supporting the safety and efficacy of PCV7 treatment for prevention of AOM

Recently, data which calls into question the overall impact of conjugated pneumococcal vaccine has been published; the common findings include:

children with history of recurrent AOM received minimal to no benefit from PCV7
a shift of S. pneumoniae serotypes to those not covered by the vaccine has been observed in AOM aspirate.
penicillin-nonsusceptible strains of S. pneumoniae have been replaced by non type B, beta-lactamase-positive Haemophilus influenzae as the primary AOM pathogen.
Vaccines which cover more strains of S. pneumoniae have not been approved for children <2 years
Vaccines against the non type B H. influenzae, are being investigated but are not currently approved.