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Correspondence
Validity of using Hospital Episode Statistics data on monitoring disease trends
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We read with interest the article by Koshy et al.1 The findings are important in documenting changes in admission rates of childhood pneumonia and empyema since the introduction of heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7). We are concerned that undue emphasis has been placed on Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data to define the aetiology of childhood pneumonia, particularly ‘bacterial pneumonia’.2
Given the magnitude of the case numbers reported, it would appear that the analyses are based on all pneumonia …
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