TY - JOUR
TI - Meningococcal serogroup Y disease in Europe: Continuation of high
importance in some European regions in 2013
AU - Broeker, Michael
AU - Emonet, Stephane
AU - Fazio, Cecilia
AU - Jacobsson,
AU - Susanne
AU - Koliou, Maria
AU - Kuusi, Markku
AU - Pace, David
AU - Paragi,
AU - Metka
AU - Pysik, Alexander
AU - Simoes, Maria Joao
AU - Skoczynska, Anna
AU - and Stefanelli, Paola
AU - Toropainen, Maija
AU - Taha, Muhamed-Kheir and
AU - Tzanakaki, Georgina
JO - Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics
PY - 2015
VL - 11
TODO - 9
SP - 2281-2286
PB - Taylor and Francis Inc.
SN - 2164-5515, 2164-554X
TODO - 10.1080/21645515.2015.1051276
TODO - epidemiology; Europe; invasive meningococcal disease; meningococcal
serogroup Y; Neisseria meningitidis; IMD; Invasive meningococcal
disease; Men; meningococcal
TODO - Neisseria meningitidis or meningococcus is divided into 12 distinct
serogroups of which A, B, C, W, X, and Y are medically most important
and cause health problems in different parts of the world. The
epidemiology of N. meningitidis is unpredictable over time and across
geographic regions. Globally, serogoup A has been prevalent in the
African meningitis belt whereas serogroup B and C have predominated in
Europe. In a paper published earlier in this journal(1), an increase in
serogroup Y invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) in some European
countries was reported based on the epidemiological data for 2010, 2011
and 2012. Here, we report additional data from 30 European countries
indicating that high or increased serogroup Y disease levels have
continued in 2013 in certain regions of Europe. In the Western and
Central Europe, there were no major changes in the proportion of
serogroup Y IMD cases in 2013 compared to 2012. In the Scandinavian
countries, proportion of serogroup Y disease remained high, ranging from
26% to 51% in 2013. This was in contrast to Baltic, Eastern and most
Southern European countries, where the proportion of serogroup Y IMD was
low similarly to previous years. For the last 2 decades, the mean age of
patients affected by serogroup Y was 41 y for 7 countries from which
data was available and 50% of cases were in patients aged 45 to 88 y.
The age distribution of serogroup Y was bimodal and did not change
significantly despite the increase of the total number and the
proportion of serogroup Y IMD in some European regions.
ER -