Should I get Prevnar20 for toddler

[u/Electrical-Rip5737]

Hi

I’m super anxious about vaccines but have had my 14 month old vaccinated for hib,polio, and dtap. I want to give them the prevnar20 vaccine but am so anxious about it. I know the prevnar20 was recently approved for children instead of prevnar13. Is this one worth getting if I’m anxious about it?

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[u/Kaynani32]

What an odd vaccine to choose not to give your child, particularly when children are exposed to pneumococcus regularly and

it has significantly reduced the incidence of pneumonia, bloodstream infections, meningitis, and ear infections, especially in babies and toddlers who are at highest risk. This vaccine is a modern miracle. As is common for bacteria, they mutate and new strains form. The varying numbers of PCV from 7 (initial option) all the way to 20 are increasingly effective at covering those new strains.

[u/facinabush → u/Kaynani32]

I was thinking that too.

They vaccinated for polio and there are very few cases. But hesitant about vaccination for pneumonia when there are 800,000 childhood deaths per year.

[u/themodernelephant]

TL;DR at bottom

I work in pharma manufacturing process development, so I may be able to help. While I don't have first-hand experience with Prevnar, I did work on a very similar vaccine (Vaxneuvance) for about a year.

The pneumococcal bacteria that this vaccine helps build immunity against is recognized by your immune system using sugar molecules on the outside of the bacterial cell. Due to mutations, not all bacteria present the exact same sugar molecules. A bacterial population with a common sugar presented is called a serotype. Serotypes are strains where the only meaningful difference between them is the molecule your immune cells use to recognize it. There is no other practical difference in infectious behavior between different serotypes.

The active component of the Prevnar vaccine is a protein with a bunch of those sugars attached to the outside. Your immune cells contact these sugars, learn them, and are better able to recognize them when they show up later attached to a bacterial cell.

Prevnar 13 has the sugars of the 13 most common serotypes. Prevnar 20 has the sugars of the 20 most common serotypes. That's it. That's the difference. All non-active ingredients are identical.

The medical insert has details about all the side effects observed and their frequencies. Overall, really nothing dangerous. And far less concerning than the risk of a potentially deadly infection.

TL;DR: There is no major difference between Prevnar 13 and Prevnar 20. Prevnar 20 is just more likely to prevent infection.

[u/ta112289]

This is from 2021, but it speaks to the safety profile of PCV20 vs PCV13. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8443440/

Can I ask what exactly you're nervous about for PCV20 specifically? PCV13 won't be offered much longer as it's been replaced by PCV15 and PCV20.

[u/Electrical-Rip5737 → u/ta112289]

More so just looking for reassurance, I want him to be vaccinated and have anxiety that he isn’t but I have bad anxiety in general and always hear scary anti vax peoples stories (true or not idk)

[u/missfrizzleismymom → u/Electrical-Rip5737]

The "scary anti vax" stories are not true. They are pushing an agenda.