Abstract
Objectives: Age (> 50 years) is a risk factor for pneumococcal disease, but is not an indication for vaccination in France, by contrast to influenza. In 2018, the pneumococcal vaccine coverage rate (VCR) was 4.5% in adults at-risk, in contrast to the influenza VCR, which was 43.6%. We aimed to assess pneumococcal and influenza VCR in 2020 in the entire French population and factors associated with a higher VCR (including the age of 65 years).Methods: We retrospectively included all adults covered by the National Health Service in 2020 and identified patients at-risk using validated algorithms. We assessed VCRs by analysing pneumococcal vaccines reimbursed between 2009 and 2020 (13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine [PCV13] and 23-valent polysaccharide vaccine [PPSV23]), and influenza vaccines reimbursed between September 2020 and March 2021.Results: In 2020, we identified 7,336,769 adults at risk (median age: 67.0 years): 84.2% had comorbidities and 24.5% were immunocompromised. The overall pneumococcal VCR (PCV13 + PPSV23) was 9.9% and the seasonal influenza VCR was 51.1%. The variable associated with the highest odds of VCR was an “age ≥65 years” for influenza (odds ratio [OR] 4.14), but not for pneumococcal vaccination (OR 1.02). In patients with comorbidities, pneumococcal VCR did not significantly increase between those aged 18–65 years and those aged > 65 years (7.2% to 9.4%), and even decreased from 20% to 17.9% in patients with immunodeficiencies. In contrast, influenza VCR increased significantly from 35.5% to 67.9% (OR 3.55) in patients with comorbidities, and from 27.3% to 71.2% (OR 5.57) in those with immunodeficiencies.Conclusion: In France, pneumococcal VCR did not increase above 65 years of age (OR 1.02), by contrast to influenza VCR (OR 4.14) that increased significantly, suggesting that an age-based recommendation for pneumococcal vaccination will probably benefit to VCR in at-risk, elderly population.