Carriage of Neisseria meningitidis by Greek children: risk factors and strain characteristics

Abstract

Oropharyngeal swabs were cultured from 554 children aged 2-19 years attending nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools in the central Athens area. A questionnaire was completed to identify risk factors for carriage. Susceptibility to antimicrobial agents was determined by Etest. The genetic relatedness of the strains was examined by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), and isolate serogrouping was performed by slide agglutination. Twenty-two (4%) children were carriers of Neisseria meningitidis; seven isolates belonged to serogroup C, and five to serogroup B. One isolate was resistant to co-trimoxazole, and five showed intermediate resistance to penicillin. DNA analysis of 16 isolates revealed six distinct PFGE patterns. Clusters with indistinguishable PFGE patterns were noted in the same school. More than one serogroup was included in the same clonal group. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, only age > 12 years remained independently associated with the carrier state (odds ratio, 7.96; 95% CI, 2.24-28.33; p < 0.001). Overall, the N. meningitidis carriage rate among Greek schoolchildren increased with age, and the predominant serogroups in the Athens region were groups C and B. These findings may have important implications for future immunisation strategies with conjugate vaccines.

Antibiotic Susceptibility Patterns of &lt;i&gt;Neisseria Meningitides&lt;/i&gt; Isolates from Asymptomatic Carriers in Gurage Zone, Southern Ethiopia

“…The prevalence of Neisseria meningitides in our study was 320(7.8%) from the total population we used it is comparable to the study conducted in Ethiopia by Bårnes GK,et al (10) in Arba Minch, southern Ethiopia 6.6%, in Burkina Faso 7.86% (11), in Turkey by Gazi H. et al 6.2% [1] and study conducted in Greece (7.2%) [12]. In contrary higher prevalence of carriage rate reported in India (10.4%) [13] And lower nasopharyngeal carriage of Neisseria meningitides was reported in healthy Dutch children 46 (1.5%) [12] And in Greece children (4.0%) [14]. our results showed higher nasopharyngeal carriage rate of Neisseria meningitides among older children less than twenty years old.…”

Vaccination against meningococcal disease in Europe: review and recommendations for the use of conjugate vaccines

“…Based on the likely carriage rates in Europe (Dominguez et al , 2001; Pavlopoulou et al , 2004; Bogaert et al , 2005), countries considering a catch‐up campaign will maximize the indirect effects of the programme by including adolescents. These observations are also supported by the findings of mathematical modelling studies (Trotter et al , 2005).…”

Systematic review: Impact of meningococcal vaccination on pharyngeal carriage of meningococci

“…Twelve studies involved controlled trials (Gotschlich et al 1969;Artenstein et al 1970;Devine et al 1970;Wenzel et al 1973;Makela et al 1975;Wahdan et al 1977;Greenwood et al 1978;Sivonen 1981;Blakebrough et al 1983;Bjune 1992;Boslego et al 1995;Perkins et al 1998), 10 studies evaluated carriage preand post-vaccination (Bosmans et al 1980;Masterton et al 1988;Dimartino et al 1990;Stroffolini et al 1990;Maiden et al 2002;Fernandez et al 2003;Djibo et al 2004;Eslami-Nejad et al 2005;Caugant et al 2006;Mueller et al 2006) and seven were cross-sectional surveys carried out post-vaccination (Hassan-King et al 1988;Neal et al 1998;Smith et al 1999;Aceitero 2000;Cardenosa et al 2001;Dominguez et al 2001;Pavlopoulou et al 2004).…”

“…Four studies evaluated a meningococcal serogroup C polysaccharide vaccine (Gotschlich et al 1969;Artenstein et al 1970;Devine et al 1970;Wenzel et al 1973), four studies evaluated a serogroup A polysaccharide vaccine (Gotschlich et al 1969;Makela et al 1975;Wahdan et al 1977;Sivonen 1981), 17 studies a serogroup A + C polysaccharide vaccine (Greenwood et al 1978;Bosmans et al 1980;Blakebrough et al 1983;Hassan-King et al 1988;Masterton et al 1988;Dimartino et al 1990;Stroffolini et al 1990;Neal et al 1998;Smith et al 1999;Aceitero 2000;Cardenosa et al 2001;Dominguez et al 2001;Fernandez et al 2003;Djibo et al 2004;Pavlopoulou et al 2004;Eslami-Nejad et al 2005;Mueller et al 2006) and one study evaluated a tetravalent ACYW135 polysaccharide vaccine (Caugant et al 2006). Only one study has reported on the effect of a meningococcal C conjugate vaccine on carriage (Maiden et al 2002).…”

“…Eleven studies focussed on high-risk groups, such as military recruits (Gotschlich et al 1969;Artenstein et al 1970;Devine et al 1970;Wenzel et al 1973;Makela et al 1975;Sivonen 1981;Masterton et al 1988;Dimartino et al 1990;Stroffolini et al 1990;Eslami-Nejad et al 2005) or subjects living in close contact with cases of meningococcal disease , while 14 studies were population based, mostly involving school children or students (Blakebrough et al 1983;Hassan-King et al 1988;Bjune 1992;Boslego et al 1995;Neal et al 1998;Perkins et al 1998;Smith et al 1999;Dominguez et al 2001;Maiden et al 2002;Fernandez et al 2003;Djibo et al 2004;Pavlopoulou et al 2004;Caugant et al 2006;Mueller et al 2006) and four a mixed population of high-risk groups and civilians (Wahdan et al 1977;Greenwood et al 1978;Bosmans et al 1980;Aceitero 2000).…”