Fatal Pneumococcal Bacteremia in a Vaccinated, Splenectomized Child

To the Editor: Recent reports^1,2 have focused attention on the potential threat of drug-resistant pneumococci and on the need for immunization of patients at high risk of serious pneumococcal infection. In the United States, where multiply resistant pneumococci are not a problem at present,³ splenectomy in children is considered to be one of the important indications for immunization with polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine.⁴ We wish to document a fatal case of pneumococcal bacteremia accompanied by disseminated intravascular coagulopathy in a splenectomized child who had received the vaccine two months before the onset of his terminal infection. In this six-year-old boy splenectomy.