INTRODUCTION Neisseria meningitidis is one of the leading causes of bacterial meningitis. In 2013, an increase in invasive disease caused by N. meningitidis serogroup B occurred in Cartagena, Colombia. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to characterize serogroup B isolates recovered from patients with meningococcal meningitis in Cartagena during 2012 and 2014. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-...

Meningococcal disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B is a public health concern even in developed countries. Despite glycoconjugate vaccines against the other invasive serogroups (A, C, W135, Y) are already available and successfully introduced in many countries, no vaccine is currently in use for prevention of serogroup B meningitis. A protein based, multicomponent vaccine (4CMen...

In 1987 an unexpected change in the epidemiology of meningococcal disease began in Australia. The change was accompanied by an outbreak of serogroup A meningococcal disease among Aboriginal central Australians, and was followed by a progressive rise in notifications of disease caused by both serogroup B and C nationwide. Over the last 4 years, the notification rate has plateaued at 2.1-2.3 per ...

The aim of this paper is to present epidemiological features of reported patients with invasive meningococcal disease in the Split-Dalmatia County in the period from January 1996 to December 2010. During the 15-year period (1996-2010), a total of 119 patients were reported to have invasive meningococcal disease, yielding a mean annual incidence rate of 1.7/100,000 inhabitants. There were 69 (58...

BACKGROUND Finnish and Swedish waste water systems used by the forest industry were found to be exceptionally heavily contaminated with legionellae in 2005. CASE PRESENTATION We report two cases of severe pneumonia in employees working at two separate mills in Finland in 2006. Legionella serological and urinary antigen tests were used to diagnose Legionnaires' disease in the symptomatic emplo...

Invasive meningococcal disease is a recognized public health problem worldwide, with a dynamic and changeable epidemiology. In Turkey, the second most common pathogenic meningococcal serogroup (after serogroup B) is W-135, including an epidemic in 2005, which has been strongly associated with Hajj pilgrims and their close contacts. In two studies conducted in 2010, we assessed meningococcal car...

In response to epidemic levels of serogroup B meningococcal disease in Cuba during the 1980s, the VA-MENGOC-BC vaccine was developed and introduced into the National Infant Immunization Program in 1991. Since then the incidence of meningococcal disease in Cuba has returned to the low levels recorded before the epidemic. A total of 420 Neisseria meningitidis strains collected between 1983 and 20...