EU-IBIS, a surveillance network for invasive meningococcal disease, continues to fulfil its aims to gather and improve epidemiological information about the disease, to integrate and analyse molecular data, and to form the focus for a wider collaboration.
The study design and analysis controlled for influence of potentially confounding trends, such as improvement of day-care carriage and decreasing prevalence of smoking during the study period.
Findings in this study confirmed the herd immunity effect of immunizing young children, since invasive meningococcal disease was not only reduced among vaccinees, but in all age groups.
The study compares the incidence and serotype distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) for pneumococcal meningitis and non-meningitis IPD in children from 2007 to 2010 with reference to the pre-vaccination period from 1997 to 2001 in Germany.