Animal models for protein pneumococcal vaccine evaluation: a summary

This paper summarizes the discussion and viewpoints from a recent meeting regarding the use of animal models for pneumococcal protein vaccines. A wide spectrum of workers in this field met to discuss the animal species to be used in models, the approach of passive and active protection, the characteristics of challenge pneumococcal strains, inducing disease syndromes by a variety of routes of challenge, the determination of specific endpoints to assess effectiveness, the correlates of protection and other details of experimental design and analysis. Vaccine regulatory aspects were discussed. The document concludes with a series of questions that remain to be investigated.