1 Meningococcal Vaccines : Current Status and 2 Emerging Strategies 3

Neisseria meningitidis causes most cases of bacterial meningitis. Meningococcal meningitis 8 is a public health burden to both developed and developing countries throughout the world. There 9 are a number of vaccines (polysaccharide-based, glycoconjugate, protein-based and combined 10 conjugate vaccines) that are approved to target five of the six disease-causing serogroups of the 11 pathogen. Immunization strategies have been effective at helping to decrease the global incidence 12 of meningococcal meningitis. Researchers continue to enhance these efforts through discovery of 13 new antigen targets that may lead to a broadly protective vaccine and development of new methods 14 of homogenous vaccine production. This review describes current meningococcal vaccines and 15 discusses some recent research discoveries that may transform vaccine development against N. 16 meningitidis in the future. 17