The current increase in the incidence and severity of infectious diseases mandates improved understanding of the basic biology and DNA repair profiles of virulent microbes. In our studies of the major pathogen and model organism Neisseria meningitidis, we constructed a panel of mutants inactivating genes involved in base excision repair, mismatch repair, nucleotide excision repair (NER), transl...

BACKGROUND/AIM Meningococcal disease most often manifests itself as meningitis or sepsis. During the course of these diseases, other clinical events sometimes develop such as pneumonia, pericarditis, arthritis, and they are referred to as extrameningeal or systemic manifestations of the meningococcal disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the type and the incidence of particular extr...

In January 2003, the Commonwealth G o v e rnment commenced the National Meningococcal C Vaccination Program. This p rogram provides free meningococcal C conjugate vaccine over the next four years to all children and adolescents who turn one to 19 years of age in 2003, a target group of almost 6 million. The meningococcal C vaccine has also been added to the Australian Standard Vaccination Sched...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW : Neurologists have a vital role in the recognition of meningitis and encephalitis, the accurate evaluation and interpretation of CSF studies, and the management and prevention of the neurologic complications of CNS infectious diseases. RECENT FINDINGS ;: Although the tetravalent meningococcal glycoconjugate vaccine has decreased the incidence of meningococcal meningitis, th...

BACKGROUND Epidemiology of Neisseria meningitidis has been changing since the introduction of universal vaccination programmes against meningococcal serogroup C (MenC) and meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) has now become dominant. This study aimed to analyse the cases reported in institutional data recording systems to estimate the burden of invasive meningococcal diseases (IMDs) and assess the ...

Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus) is a Gram-negative human pathogen that causes meningococcal diseases, such as meningococcal meningitis and meningococcal septicemia. Based on the surface capsular oligosaccharides of the organism, 13 serogroups of N. meningitidis have been identified, among which A, B, C, Y, and W135 are the major pathogenic strains. Serogroup A is the pathogen most often ...

Active smoking is a recognized risk factor of various infectious diseases. In a systematic review published in BMC Public Health, Murray et al. demonstrated that exposure to passive smoking significantly increased the risk of meningococcal disease among children. Their review especially highlights that the risk remains high even if the exposure occurs during pregnancy or after birth, although t...

Occupationally acquired meningococcal disease is rare. Adherence to recommendations for safe handling of Neisseria meningitidis in the laboratory greatly reduces the risk for transmission to laboratory workers. A California microbiologist developed fatal serogroup B meningococcal disease after working with N. meningitidis patient isolates in a research laboratory (laboratory A). The California ...