Question:
Assertion (A): The 23 valent pneumococcal vaccine is not recommended for routine use in children.
Reason (R): Most pneumococcal strains are still susceptible to penicillin.
Assertion (A): The 23 valent pneumococcal vaccine is not recommended for routine use in children.
Reason (R): Most pneumococcal strains are still susceptible to penicillin.
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Think about why polysaccharide vaccines work poorly in infants, and about rising penicillin resistance in pneumococcus.
Updated On: Jul 7, 2026
- Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
- Both A and R are true but R is NOT the correct explanation of A.
- A is true but R is false.
- A is false but R is true.
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The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
Step 1: Understanding the Question:
We need to check two separate facts about the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23): whether it is used routinely in children, and whether pneumococcal resistance to penicillin is really rare.
Step 2: Key Concept:
PPSV23 is a plain polysaccharide vaccine. Polysaccharide antigens do not trigger a strong immune response in children younger than two years because their immune system cannot yet mount a good T-cell dependent antibody response to pure sugar antigens. For this reason, routine protection in infants and young children is instead given through the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), which links the polysaccharide to a protein carrier and works well even in early childhood. PPSV23 is reserved for older children with specific risk conditions and for adults, not for routine use in the general child population.
Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Assertion (A) is therefore true: PPSV23 is not the routine childhood vaccine because of its weak immune response in young children.
Reason (R) claims that most pneumococcal strains are still susceptible to penicillin. By the time of this exam, resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae to penicillin had already become a widely recognized and growing problem worldwide, including in India, with a significant share of strains showing reduced susceptibility or outright resistance. So the claim that most strains remain penicillin-susceptible is not an accurate general statement, and R is false.
Since R is false, it also cannot be a valid reason for A, whose true explanation lies in the poor immunogenicity of polysaccharide vaccines in young children, not in antibiotic susceptibility.
Step 4: Final Answer:
A is true but R is false.
We need to check two separate facts about the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23): whether it is used routinely in children, and whether pneumococcal resistance to penicillin is really rare.
Step 2: Key Concept:
PPSV23 is a plain polysaccharide vaccine. Polysaccharide antigens do not trigger a strong immune response in children younger than two years because their immune system cannot yet mount a good T-cell dependent antibody response to pure sugar antigens. For this reason, routine protection in infants and young children is instead given through the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), which links the polysaccharide to a protein carrier and works well even in early childhood. PPSV23 is reserved for older children with specific risk conditions and for adults, not for routine use in the general child population.
Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Assertion (A) is therefore true: PPSV23 is not the routine childhood vaccine because of its weak immune response in young children.
Reason (R) claims that most pneumococcal strains are still susceptible to penicillin. By the time of this exam, resistance of Streptococcus pneumoniae to penicillin had already become a widely recognized and growing problem worldwide, including in India, with a significant share of strains showing reduced susceptibility or outright resistance. So the claim that most strains remain penicillin-susceptible is not an accurate general statement, and R is false.
Since R is false, it also cannot be a valid reason for A, whose true explanation lies in the poor immunogenicity of polysaccharide vaccines in young children, not in antibiotic susceptibility.
Step 4: Final Answer:
A is true but R is false.
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