AIMS To quantify a range of haematological indicators of viral infection (leucocyte apoptosis, cytopenia of normal lymphocytes, reactive lymphocyte increase, neutropenia) in patients with recent onset invasive meningococcal disease (IMD), with a view to test the association of viral infection with IMD and identify possible haematological risk factors for its development. SUBJECTS AND METHODS ...

In March 2009, six cases of invasive meningococ-cal disease (IMD) were reported in two communes of Goleniów County in northwest Poland. The people affected were aged from seven to 25 years. The overall incidence rate in the county was eight per 100,000 population. All the patients recovered fully. No epidemiological links were established between the cases. All were infected with Neisseria meni...

Worldwide, invasive meningococcal disease affects about 500,000 people annually. Case fatality in developed countries averages 10%, and higher rates are reported in less prosperous regions. According to the World Health Organization, the most important pathogenic serogroups are A, B, C, W-135, X, and Y. Clinical features of invasive meningococcal disease make diagnosis and management difficult....

The availability of geocoded health data and the inherent temporal structure of communicable diseases have led to an increased interest in statistical models and software for spatio-temporal data with epidemic features. The R package surveillance can handle various levels of aggregation at which infective events have been recorded. This vignette illustrates the analysis of point-referenced surv...

Bianca Törös (2014): Genome-based characterization of Neisseria meningitidis with focus on the emergent serogroup Y disease. Örebro Studies in Medicine 109. Neisseria meningitidis, also referred to as meningococcus, is one of the leading causes of epidemic meningitis and septicaemia worldwide. Despite modern treatment, meningococcal disease remains associated with a high mortality (about 10%). ...

Background: Invasive meningococcal disease remains an important cause of serious morbidity and mortality in children and young people. There is a growing body of literature to suggest that exposure to passive smoke may play a role in the development of the disease, therefore we have performed a systematic review to provide a comprehensive estimate of the magnitude of this effect for smoking by ...

BACKGROUND Invasive meningococcal disease remains an important cause of serious morbidity and mortality in children and young people. There is a growing body of literature to suggest that exposure to passive smoke may play a role in the development of the disease, therefore we have performed a systematic review to provide a comprehensive estimate of the magnitude of this effect for smoking by a...

Since 2013, there has been an increase in the number of notified cases of invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) due to serogroup W (MenW) in Australia. In response to this observed increase, the Communicable Diseases Network Australia convened a working group in 2015 to collate and analyse the epidemiology of MenW disease nationally. Enhanced surveillance data collected by jurisdictions were col...