A news study presented Monday at the joint annual meeting of the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Washington D.C., showed that a new version of Wyeth’s Prevnar offered enhanced protection against pneumococcal disease in young children compared with the already existing version.

Prevnar was approved eight years ago in the United States to protect against seven types of streptococcus pneumoniae, strains of bacteria that cause a range of illnesses like ear infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and meningitis, an infection of the covering of the brain and spinal cord.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccine has decreased the incidence of invasive pneumococcal disease in children five and under by 80 percent in the US since approval.

The new version, called Prevnar-13, protects against the same seven strains as the current Prevnar-7, plus six additional strains including 19A, which has become resistant to most antibiotics approved for use in children.

The study proving this involved 604 infants in Germany who received either Prevnar-13 or Prevnar-7 at ages 2.3 and 4 months who were then assessed one month after receiving the vaccinations to see how well they produced antibodies to the strains of bacteria included in each vaccine. Side effects of the vaccine included redness and swelling at the injection site, fever, irritability, restless sleep and decreased appetite.

Emilio A. Emini, Wyeth’s executive vice president of vaccine research and development, said the 13 strains included in the new version of the vaccine should cover more than 90 percent of invasive pneumococcal disease in infants and children. He also added that the company expects to complete its US filing for pediatric use of the vaccine in the first quarter of 2009, with other pediatric global filings expected at the same time. The vaccine could hit the US market by the end of 2009 after the Food and Drug Administration’s six-month review.