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Vaccination with Bexsero effectively protects individuals from serogroup B meningococcal disease
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Cases of serogroup B meningococcal disease were not detected among individuals who received one or more doses of Bexsero, indicating that the vaccine may have protected these individuals from disease, according to study findings.
However, researchers noted that the vaccine did eliminate the risk of serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis among vaccinated persons.
In 2013-2014, an outbreak of serogroup B meningococcal disease occurred among individuals associated with a New Jersey university. However, until October 2014, options for control of serogroup B outbreaks were limited by the absence of a licensed vaccine for serogroup B meningococcal disease in the U.S., Lucy McNamara, PhD, of the division of bacterial diseases of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC and colleagues wrote.
During the outbreak, the attack rate among undergraduate students at the university was 134 per 100,000 students — more than 1,400 times greater than the national incidence in this age group, according to the CDC.
McNamara and colleagues sought to examine the outbreak as well as the effect of the expanded-access investigational new drug protocol campaign for the investigational vaccine, Bexsero (4CMenB; Novartis), then licensed for use in the European Union, Australia and Canada.
There were a total of nine cases of serogroup B meningococcal disease that occurred in those linked to the university between March 25, 2013 and March 10, 2014. Results of laboratory typing were identical for eight of the available isolates.
The overall vaccination rate for the 2-dose vaccination series through May 14, 2014 was 89.1%. At the start of vaccination through February 1, 2015, the researchers found no additional cases of serogroup B meningococcal disease among university students.
However, a ninth case occurred during March 2014 in an unvaccinated close contact of university students that had received both doses of the vaccine; therefore, suggesting the occurrence of this case demonstrates that the vaccination campaign had not eliminated carriage from the university population by this time and that transmission of the outbreak strain was ongoing, according to the researchers.
“Ultimately, it is unknown whether additional cases would have occurred in university … students in the absence of the vaccination campaign, but the lack of cases in vaccinated persons combined with the evidence of ongoing transmission in the population suggests the campaign did succeed in providing primary protection to the student population,” McNamara and colleagues wrote. “The outbreak investigation and highly successful vaccination campaign … can serve as a model for how to approach similar outbreaks in the future.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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