Editorial Commentary: The Endgame for Serogroup A Meningococcal Disease in Africa?

M C J Maiden

doi:10.1093/cid/cis896

Abstract

Editorial Commentary: The Endgame for Serogroup A Meningococcal Disease in Africa?

Highlights

Since 1905 the “meningitis belt” of sub-Saharan Africa, has experienced devastating seasonal epidemics of meningococcal disease approximately every decade [1]
For controlling disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis, which is transmitted asymptomatically at high rates in the population and invades comparatively rarely, these “plain” polysaccharide vaccines had little or no effect on carriage [6], and encapsulated meningococci continued to circulate in vaccinated populations
A major step forward in the control of meningococcal disease globally came with the conjugate polysaccharide vaccines, with similar products available for Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and various pneumococcus types [7, 8]

Summary

Introduction

Since 1905 the “meningitis belt” of sub-Saharan Africa, has experienced devastating seasonal epidemics of meningococcal disease approximately every decade [1]. When the proportion of individuals in a population that are resistant to infection by a given agent—for example, as a result of immunization—is greater than 1 − (1/R0), transmission of that agent in the population is prevented, protecting the immunized and the unimmunized from the possibility of disease [10].

Results

Conclusion