Meningococcal serogroup Y emergence in Europe: high importance in some European regions in 2012

Abstract

Neisseria meningitidis is differentiated into 12 distinct serogroups, of which A, B, C, W, X, and Y are medically most important and represent an important health problem in different parts of the world. The epidemiology of N. meningitidis is unpredictable over time and across geographic regions. Recent epidemiological surveillance has indicated an increase of serogroup Y invasive meningococcal disease in some parts of Europe as shown in the epidemiological data for 2010 and 2011 from various European countries previously published in this journal. (1)(,) (2) Here, data from 33 European countries is reported indicating that the emergence of serogroup Y continued in 2012 in various regions of Europe, especially in Scandinavia, while in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe the importance of serogroup Y remained low.

Keywords: Europe; epidemiology; invasive meningococcal disease; meningococcal vaccines; serogroup Y; surveillance.

Figure 1. Relative proportion of N. meningitidis serogroup Y in various European countries in 2012. The figure is based on data communicated by the scientists listed in the Acknowledgment and/or published in web pages of national public institutes. The data for 2012 are compared with data from 2010 and 2011, which have been communicated earlier.^, Color coding refers 2012 data. Data were not available to the authors for countries shown in white.