Neisseria meningitidis network (in collaboration with EU-MenNet)

Introduction

Meningococcal disease, caused by N meningitidis, is most common in young children, with a secondary peak in disease incidence in teenagers. Mortality from meningococcal disease remains high - around 8% - and survivors may suffer from serious after-effects, including deafness, neurological problems and amputations. Most disease in Europe is caused by serogroups B and C. Since 1999, several countries have introduced vaccination programmes against serogroup C disease, using new conjugate vaccines, but there is to date no broadly effective vaccine against serogroup B disease.

Further, more general, information on meningococcal disease is available.

Vaccine schedules

The UK was the first country to introduce the meningococcal serogroup C conjugate (MCC) vaccines in 1999 in response to increasing incidence of serogroup C disease. The UK vaccination programme [pdf link], which included a catch-up campaign for all individuals aged less the 18 years old, has successfully controlled serogroup C disease. Several other countries, including Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland and Portugal subsequently introduced MCC vaccines. Details of the vaccine schedules used are available.

Database

EU-IBIS surveillance data from 1999 - 2006 can be viewed in the form of graphs and tables.

Meetings

The EU-IBIS Neisseria meningitidis network holds a business meeting once every two or three years, and it also liases with the European Mornitoring Group on Meningococci, which holds its meetings every two years. Some of the outputs of the meetings are for EU-IBIS participants only, but others are publicly available, and where appropriate, will be accessibe from the EU-IBIS website.

8th EMGM Meeting, 7th - 9th September 2005, Dublin
9th EMGM Meeting, 30th May - 1st June 2007, Rome

Participants

Details of the epidemiologists and microbiologists involved in the N meningitidis network are available. Please note, that for some countries, the contacts are the same for Hib and meningococcal disease.

EU-MenNet project

The N meningitidis arm of EU-IBIS works in close collaboration with another EU funded project, the European Meningococcal Network Study, or EU-MenNet. Dr Mary Ramsay is the project leader of the Epidemiology work package.