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Background The 92 capsular serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae differ greatly in nasopharyngeal carriage prevalence, invasiveness and disease incidence. There has been some debate, though, as to whether serotype independently affects the outcome of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). Published studies have shown variable results with regards to case-fatality ratios for specific serotypes and the role of host factors in affecting these relationships. We evaluated whether risk of death from IPD is a stable serotype-associated property across studies, and then compared the pooled effect estimates with epidemiologic and biological correlates. Methods We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of serotype-specific disease outcome for pneumonia and meningitis cases. Study-specific estimates of risk of death (risk ratio, RR) were pooled from 9 studies that provided serotype-specific data on pneumonia and meningitis using a random-effects method with serotype 14 as the reference. Pooled RRs were compared to RRs from adult cases with low co-morbidity scores to evaluate potential confounding by host factors. Results There were significant differences in the RR estimates between serotypes among bacteremic pneumonia cases. Overall, types 1, 7F and 8 were associated with decreased RRs and types 3, 6A, 6B, 9N and 19F were associated with increased RRs. Outcomes among meningitis cases did not differ significantly between types. Serotypes with increased RRs tended to have a high carriage prevalence, low invasiveness, and were more heavily encapsulated in vitro. These results suggest that IPD outcome, like other epidemiologic measures, is a stable serotype-associated property.

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In a PLOS Medicine Review, Felicity Cutts and colleagues describe the challenges facing the estimation of vaccination coverage in low- and middle-income countries using surveys and recommend ways to improve the measurement of this important public health indicator.