Wellcome Open Research (Aug 2019)

UKMenCar4: A cross-sectional survey of asymptomatic meningococcal carriage amongst UK adolescents at a period of low invasive meningococcal disease incidence [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]

  • Holly B. Bratcher,
  • Charlene M. C. Rodrigues,
  • Adam Finn,
  • Mandy Wootton,
  • J. Claire Cameron,
  • Andrew Smith,
  • Paul Heath,
  • Shamez Ladhani,
  • Matthew D. Snape,
  • Andrew J. Pollard,
  • Richard Cunningham,
  • Raymond Borrow,
  • Caroline Trotter,
  • Stephen J. Gray,
  • Martin C. J. Maiden,
  • Jenny M. MacLennan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.15362.1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4

Abstract

Read online

Carriage of Neisseria meningitidis, the meningococcus, is a prerequisite for invasive meningococcal disease (IMD), a potentially devastating infection that disproportionately afflicts infants and children. Humans are the sole known reservoir for the meningococcus, and it is carried asymptomatically in the nasopharynx of ~10% of the population. Rates of carriage are dependent on age of the host and social and behavioural factors. In the UK, meningococcal carriage has been studied through large, multi-centre carriage surveys of adolescents in 1999, 2000, and 2001, demonstrating carriage can be affected by immunisation with the capsular group C meningococcal conjugate vaccine, inducing population immunity against carriage. Fifteen years after these surveys were carried out, invasive meningococcal disease incidence had declined from a peak in 1999. The UKMenCar4 study was conducted in 2014/15 to investigate rates of carriage amongst the adolescent population during a period of low disease incidence. The protocols and methodology used to perform UKMenCar4, a large carriage survey, are described here.