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. 2024 Dec 2;42(26):126312.
doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2024.126312. Epub 2024 Sep 10.

Effectiveness of a serogroup B meningococcal vaccine against gonorrhea: A retrospective study

Winston E Abara  1 , Sharareh Modaressi  2 , Bruce Fireman  2 , Nicola P Klein  2 , Evan Layefsky  2 , Kristin Goddard  2 , Kyle T Bernstein  3 , Robert D Kirkcaldy  3 , Ousseny Zerbo  2
Affiliations

Effectiveness of a serogroup B meningococcal vaccine against gonorrhea: A retrospective study

Winston E Abara et al. Vaccine. .

Abstract

Background: Outer membrane vesicle (OMV) meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) vaccines might be protective against gonorrhea. We evaluated the effectiveness of MenB-4C, an OMV MenB vaccine, against gonorrhea.

Methods: We identified gonococcal mono-infections, chlamydial mono-infections, and gonococcal/chlamydial co-infections among persons aged 15-30 years in the electronic health records of Kaiser Permanente Northern California during 2016-2021. We determined MenB-4C vaccination status (vaccinated [≥1 MenB-4C vaccine dose] or unvaccinated [MenB-4C vaccine naïve]) at each infection. We used log-binomial regression with generalized estimating equations to calculate adjusted prevalence ratios (APR) and 95 % confidence intervals (CI) to determine if MenB-4C vaccination was protective against gonococcal mono-infections compared to chlamydial mono-infection. We also evaluated if MenB-4C vaccination was protective against gonococcal/chlamydial co-infections. Because of concerns with small sample size of vaccinated persons, we estimated effects using a limited model (adjusting for race/ethnicity only) and an expanded model (adjusting for additional potential confounders).

Results: Of 68,454 persons, we identified 558 (0.8 %) MenB-4C vaccinated persons and 85,393 infections (13,000 gonococcal mono-infections, 68,008 chlamydial mono-infections, and 4385 gonococcal/chlamydial co-infections). After adjusting for race/ethnicity, MenB-4C vaccination was 23 % protective against gonococcal mono-infection compared to chlamydial mono-infection (APR = 0.77, 95 % CI = 0.64-0.99) in the limited model but not in the expanded model.

Conclusion: MenB-4C vaccination was protective against gonococcal mono-infection, independent of race/ethnicity. This protective effect was not observed when other potential confounders were included in the analysis. Protection against gonococcal/chlamydial co-infection was not observed. Efficacy data from clinical trials are needed.

Keywords: Gonorrhea; Gonorrhea/chlamydia co-infection; MenB-4C; STI vaccine; Vaccine effectiveness; chlamydia.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Sharareh Modaressi reports financial support was provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Bruce Fireman reports financial support was provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nicola P. Klein reports financial support was provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Evan Layefsky reports financial support was provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kristin Goddard reports financial support was provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ousseny Zerbo reports financial support was provided by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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