This podcast is sponsored by MSD.
Listen as leading experts Vana Spoulou, Paediatrician and Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, University of Athens and Agia Sofia Children’s Hospital, Athens, Greece; and Javier Díez-Domingo, Infectious Disease Specialist and Head of Vaccine Research, Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (FISABIO), Universidad de Valencia, Spain, offer their insights into the evaluation of paediatric pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCV) and the role they play in helping to maximise protection.
Areas of discussion include:
- The persistent unmet need and disease burden of paediatric invasive pneumococcal disease
- The importance of local pneumococcal epidemiology in PCV evaluation and selection
- Key determinants that influence PCV selection, including immunogenicity, serotype coverage, and local serotype prevalence, particularly serotypes 3 and 19A
- How vaccine completion rates can modify the expected impact of a vaccine
Speakers:
Vana Spoulou1
Javier Díez-Domingo2
1. University of Athens; Agia Sofia Children’s Hospital, Athens, Greece
2. Foundation for the Promotion of Health and Biomedical Research of the Valencian Community (FISABIO), Universidad de Valencia, Spain
Copyright © 2026 Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA and its affiliates. All rights reserved.
HQ-PPV-00112 10/26






