Invasive meningococcal disease is a serious life-threatening infection. Skin rash is present in about half of the patients with meningococcal infection. However it could be easily missed if no thorough cutaneous examination is performed. Herein, we present a patient with invasive meningococcal serogroup B infection with diffuse cutaneous purplish rash and ecchymoses, suggestive of purpura fulmi...

The incidence of invasive meningococcal disease in adolescents and young adults of high school and college age has recently increased in the United States. Recent studies indicate that certain groups of college students are at increased risk. This has led to the recent Advisory Committee Immunization Practices recommendation that college freshman dormitory residents be provided information abou...

BACKGROUND Meningococcal meningitis (MM) represents an important public health problem especially in the "meningitis belt" in Africa. Although seasonality of epidemics is well known with outbreaks usually starting in the dry season, pluri-annual cycles are still less understood and even studied. In this context, we aimed at study MM cases time series across 9 sahelo-sudanian countries to detect...

Meningococcal disease is a fulminant infection with an overall mortality of 8%. Mortality is significantly increased with meningococcal septicaemia, particularly when there has been a delay in the diagnosis. The trend from 1985 to 1995 has been an increase in incidence of this disease, and the relative importance of meningococcal disease has also increased following a fall in the incidence of i...

A 20-y-old male presented with symptoms of meningococcal sepsis and died despite appropriate medical interventions. Blood cultures grew N. meningitidis serogroup Y. The patient had received the meningococcal quadrivalent (A,C,W-135,Y) polysaccharide vaccine 15 mo previously. Because the patient had a history of meningococcal meningitis at age 10, archived serum was obtained for further analysis...

Most vaccines available in the United States have been incorporated into vaccination schedules for infants and young children, age groups particularly at risk of contracting infectious diseases. High universal vaccination coverage is responsible for substantially reducing or nearly eliminating many of the diseases that once killed thousands of children each year in the US. Despite the success o...

This review discusses the possible involvement of a variety of genetic polymorphisms on the course of meningococcal disease. It has been shown that several common genetic polymorphisms can either influence the susceptibility to meningococcal disease or can account for a higher mortality rate in patients. Gene polymorphisms concerning antibody receptors, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) binding receptor...

Neisseria meningitidis is a major global pathogen causing invasive disease with a mortality of 5-10%. Most disease in developed countries is caused by serogroup B infection, against which there is no universal vaccine. Opacity-associated adhesin (Opa) proteins are major meningococcal outer membrane proteins, which have shown recent promise as a potential novel vaccine. Immunisation of mice with...

BACKGROUND Surveillance of infectious diseases increasingly relies on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The integration of pathogen fine typing data in dynamic systems and visualization of spatio-temporal clusters are a technical challenge for system development. RESULTS An online geographic information system (EpiScanGIS) based on open source components has been launched in Germany in Ma...

In order to asses the clinical forms of meningococcal disease, we reviewed 201 cases diagnosed as meningococcal disease in the University Hospital of the Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, 185 of which met the inclusion criteria. Clinical and laboratorial characterization allowed for grouping of the cases as follows: meningococcal meningitis, 18%; meningitis with septicemia, 62%; ...