Frequencies of pneumococcal types causing serious infections in patients admitted to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, 1969-77.

During a 7 1/2 year period pneumococci were isolated from body fluids of 124 patients at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford -72 with pneumonia, 26 with meningitis and 26 with other serious infections. Eighty-one (65%) of the patients were over 50, and 33 (27%) were over 70 years old. Of the 124 pneumococcal strains 104 (84%), including 23 (79%) of those from patients who died, belonged to types included in the vaccines successfully used in South Africa and in Papua New Guinea. The relative frequencies of types in the Oxford series and in a larger British series agreed closely with those found in a recent survey of 3644 bacteraemic pneumococcal infections in 10 American cities. Any polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine licensed for use in the United States is thus likely to be relevant to the situation in Britain.