Emerging Infectious Diseases (Aug 2018)

Fatal Nongroupable Neisseria meningitidis Disease in Vaccinated Patient Receiving Eculizumab

  • Deirdre Nolfi-Donegan,
  • Monica Konar,
  • Vianca Vianzon,
  • Jessica MacNeil,
  • James Cooper,
  • Perrianne Lurie,
  • Judi Sedivy,
  • Xin Wang,
  • Dan M. Granoff,
  • Lucy McNamara

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2408.180228
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 24, no. 8
pp. 1561 – 1564

Abstract

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Patients receiving eculizumab have an increased risk for meningococcal disease, but most reported cases are attributable to encapsulated meningococcal strains. We describe a case in which a nongroupable meningococcal strain, which rarely causes disease in healthy persons, caused fatal disease in an eculizumab recipient despite meningococcal vaccination.

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