Study on the Impact of Vaccination With a Conjugate Vaccine on Meningococcal Carriage

Summary

Meningococcal disease occurs throughout the world but attack rates in the Sahelian and sub-Sahelian regions of Africa - the African meningitis belt - are many times higher than those seen in any other part of the world. During 2009, over 70,000 meningitis cases and 3,200 deaths were reported in Nigeria, Niger, and Chad alone. In 2001, a public private partnership between WHO and PATH was created, the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP). The MVP set out to develop an affordable meningococcal serogroup A conjugate vaccine (MenAfriVac™) for use in the African meningitis belt. This was successfully achieved, and the new vaccine, produced by the Serum Institute of India (SII), was granted a licence in 2009 for international export. The vaccine dossier was submitted to WHO for prequalification at the beginning of 2010. Introduction through mass vaccination is planned in three African Meningitis belt countries in 2010 (Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger). The implementation of MenAfriVac will be the responsibility of the local Ministry of Health, with the support of the World Health Organization. It is anticipated that this vaccine will be deployed in other countries of the meningitis belt in 2011. This vaccine should provide high levels of direct protection to immunised individuals but, as for serogroup C conjugate vaccines in the United Kingdom, a greater public health impact will be achieved if carriage and transmission of the infection are also prevented. The London School of Hygiene \& Tropical Medicine (LSTHM) is coordinating the African Meningococcal Carriage Consortium (MenAfriCar). One of the primary objectives of the MenAfriCar project is to evaluate the impact of the new conjugate vaccine on meningococcal carriage and transmission of serogroup A meningococci in Mali, Niger and Chad. A community-based prospective, pre- and post intervention, observational study will be conducted. MenAfriCar will also help to develop research capacity in the participating African countries.

Timeline

Start

2010-05

Primary completion

2012-05

Completion

2012-06

Publications

• Diallo K, Gamougam K, Daugla DM, Harrison OB, Bray JE, Caugant DA, Lucidarme J, Trotter CL, Hassan-King M, Stuart JM, Manigart O, Greenwood BM, Maiden MCJ. Hierarchical genomic analysis of carried and invasive serogroup A Neisseria meningitidis during the 2011 epidemic in Chad. BMC Genomics. 2017 May 22;18(1):398. doi: 10.1186/s12864-017-3789-0.

Drugs

Indications