Emergence of Drug-Resistant Pneumococcal Infections in the United States

Abstract

Emergence of drug-resistant pneumococcal infections will present critical challenges to clinicians for treating patients with pneumococcal disease. Widened and intensified surveillance is needed. These data suggest that current recommendations for use of 23-valent pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide vaccines should be aggressively promoted and that development and evaluation of new conjugate pneumococcal vaccines may be a crucial part of strategies for prevention.