IMPORTANCE AND OBJECTIVE Prior influenza infection is a risk factor for invasive meningococcal disease. Quantifying the fraction of meningococcal disease attributable to influenza could improve understanding of viral-bacterial interaction and indicate additional health benefits to influenza immunization. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A time series analysis of the association of influenza a...

Understanding why carriers of meningococci occasionally develop invasive disease is a major challenge. Individual strains of meningococci are extremely variable and undergo dynamic changes in DNA content and organization. This heterogeneity of meningococcal populations might enhance the fitness of this human-restricted bacterium. The recent discovery of a meningococcal bacteriophage and its ass...

BACKGROUND The incidence of serogroup C and Y meningococcal disease increased in the United States during the 1990s. The cyclical nature of endemic meningococcal disease remains unexplained. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanisms associated with the increase in the incidence of meningococcal disease. METHODS We characterized an increasing incidence of invasive serogroup C...

BACKGROUND The prenatal period may be important for susceptibility to infections. We evaluated whether low birthweight, prematurity, and prenatal maternal smoking were associated with increased risk of invasive meningococcal disease. METHODS We linked the Danish nationwide National Registry of Patients, the Birth Registry, and social registries to obtain data on fetal growth and social factor...

In August 1987, an outbreak of group A meningococcal meningitis occurred during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, resulting in an attack rate among American pilgrims of 640 per 100,000. To determine risk factors for carriage, throat cultures were taken from passengers arriving on four consecutive flights from Saudi Arabia to the United States. Pilgrims were more likely to be group A...

As key stakeholders in immunization policy decisions, the Pediatricians of Ontario held an accredited conference on January 18, 2014, to discuss prevention of invasive meningococcal disease. Five key recommendations were put forth regarding immunization strategies to protect children from meningococcal serogroup B disease. The recently approved four-component meningococcal B (4CMenB) vaccine sh...

BACKGROUND A number of epidemiologic studies have observed an association between secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure and pediatric invasive bacterial disease (IBD) but the evidence has not been systematically reviewed. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of SHS exposure and two outcomes, IBD and pharyngeal carriage of bacteria, for Neisseria meningitidis (N. meningitidis), Haemoph...

A more complete understanding of meningococcal disease has been hampered by the lack of an appropriate animal model. Previous models have utilized injections of meningococci, which precludes the study of nasopharyngeal colonization and invasion. We have developed a model for meningococcal disease in which litters of 5-day-old mice are challenged intranasally with 10(7) viable meningococci. Bact...

Neisseria meningitidis, the meningococcus, is a major cause of bacterial meningitis and septicemia worldwide. Infection in most cases leads to asymptomatic carriage and only rarely to disease. Meningococcal disease often occurs in outbreaks, which are both sporadic and highly unpredictable. The occurrence of disease outbreaks in a host population in which the etiological agent is widely carried...