This work highlights the importance of preventing pneumococcal pneumonia infections, especially in elderly people with pre-existing heart problems, according to pediatric infectious disease Stephen Pelton at the Boston University School of Medicine. “The type of vaccine that they’re describing presumably would be effective against all pneumococci,” in contrast to vaccines containing surface polysaccharides that are specific to individual strains, said Pelton who was not involved in the study and whose pneumococcal vaccine research is funded in part by pharmaceutical companies. “That would really add to the advantage or the benefit of people who have chronic disease.”