Prevention of pneumococcal infection with vaccines

The first vaccines to prevent pneumococcal infections, crude preparations of killed bacteria, were developed by Sir Almroth Wright in 1911 to try to alleviate the high mortality and morbidity among gold miners in South Africa. Discovery that antibodies against purified polysaccharides of the capsular surface of pneumococci were protective led to development of polysaccharide vaccines that were marketed in the 1940s. These vaccines were commercial failures because the advent of antimicrobials led to a perception that pneumococcal infections were no longer a major threat.