Vaccine Preventability of Meningococcal Clone, Greater Aachen Region, Germany

An emerging serogroup B clone can be prevented by vaccines

Comparing the meningococcal serogroup C immune response elicited by a tetanus toxoid conjugate quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine (MenACYW-TT) versus a quadrivalent or monovalent C tetanus toxoid conjugate meningococcal vaccine in healthy meningococcal vaccine-naïve toddlers : A randomised, controlled trial

MenACYW-TT (MenQuadfi®) is a quadrivalent meningococcal tetanus toxoid conjugate vaccine licensed in Europe for use in individuals ≥12 months. This study assessed whether serogroup C immune responses with MenACYW-TT were at least non-inferior, or superior, to those of quadrivalent meningococcal ACWY (MCV4-TT; Nimenrix®) and monovalent meningococcal C (MenC-TT; NeisVac-C®) vaccines in toddlers (12–23 months). In this modified, double-blind Phase III study (NCT03890367), 701 toddlers received one dose of MenACYW-TT (n = 230), MCV4-TT (n = 232) or MenC-TT (n = 239). Serum bactericidal assays with human (hSBA) and baby rabbit (rSBA) complement were used to measure anti-meningococcal serogroup C antibodies at baseline and 30 days post-vaccination. A sequential statistical approach was used for primary and secondary objectives. For the primary objectives, superiority of serogroup C was assessed in terms of hSBA seroprotection rates (defined as titers ≥1:8) and GMTs for MenACYW-TT compared to MCV4-TT, and rSBA GMTs compared to MenC-TT. The safety of all vaccines within 30 days post-vaccination was described. When administered as a single dose to meningococcal vaccine-naïve healthy toddlers the superiority of the MenACYW-TT serogroup C immune response versus MCV4-TT was demonstrated for hSBA GMTs (ratio 16.3 [12.7–21.0]) and seroprotection (difference 10.43% [5.68–16.20]); and versus MenC-TT in terms of rSBA GMTs (ratio 1.32 [1.06–1.64]). The safety profiles of a single dose of MenACYW-TT, MCV4-TT and MenC-TT were similar. In meningococcal vaccine-naïve toddlers, MenACYW-TT induced superior immune responses to serogroup C versus MCV4-TT in terms of hSBA seroprotection and GMTs and versus MenC-TT in terms of rSBA GMTs.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

The global meningitis genome partnership.

Genomic surveillance of bacterial meningitis pathogens is essential for effective disease control globally, enabling identification of emerging and expanding strains and consequent public health interventions. While there has been a rise in the use of whole genome sequencing, this has been driven predominately by a subset of countries with adequate capacity and resources. Global capacity to participate in surveillance needs to be expanded, particularly in low and middle-income countries with high disease burdens. In light of this, the WHO-led collaboration, Defeating Meningitis by 2030 Global Roadmap, has called for the establishment of a Global Meningitis Genome Partnership that links resources for: N. meningitidis (Nm), S. pneumoniae (Sp), H. influenzae (Hi) and S. agalactiae (Sa) to improve worldwide co-ordination of strain identification and tracking. Existing platforms containing relevant genomes include: PubMLST: Nm (31,622), Sp (15,132), Hi (1935), Sa (9026); The Wellcome Sanger Institute: Nm (13,711), Sp (> 24,000), Sa (6200), Hi (1738); and BMGAP: Nm (8785), Hi (2030). A steering group is being established to coordinate the initiative and encourage high-quality data curation. Next steps include: developing guidelines on open-access sharing of genomic data; defining a core set of metadata; and facilitating development of user-friendly interfaces that represent publicly available data

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Schneidemühl oder Rom? Oder: Die wahre katholischen Kirche ermittelt aus den apostolischen Urkunden / von Ph. J. Oster.

SCHNEIDEMÜHL ODER ROM? ODER: DIE WAHRE KATHOLISCHEN KIRCHE ERMITTELT AUS DEN APOSTOLISCHEN URKUNDEN / VON PH. J. OSTER. Schneidemühl oder Rom? Oder: Die wahre katholischen Kirche ermittelt aus den apostolischen Urkunden / von Ph. J. Oster. (1) Titelblatt (1) Widmung (3) Text (5) Einband (79

Immunogenicity and safety of MenACWY-TT, a quadrivalent meningococcal tetanus toxoid conjugate vaccine recently licensed in the United States for individuals ≥2 years of age

Vaccination offers the best way to prevent invasive meningococcal disease (IMD). As demonstrated in countries with national immunization programs (NIPs) against IMD, meningococcal conjugate vaccines have contributed to significant declines in incidence. Since some meningococcal vaccines are associated with modest immunogenicity in infants, possible immunological interference upon concomitant administration with some pediatric vaccines, and administration errors resulting from improper reconstitution, opportunities for improvement exist. A quadrivalent conjugate vaccine, MenQuadfi® (Meningococcal [Serogroups A, C, Y, and W] Conjugate Vaccine; Sanofi, Swiftwater, Pennsylvania), was approved in 2020 for the prevention of IMD caused by meningococcal serogroups A, C, W, and Y in individuals ≥2 years of age in the United States. Five pivotal studies and one ancillary study supported approval in the United States; clinical trials in infants are ongoing. Data on the immunogenicity and safety of this vaccine are presented, and its potential value in clinical practice is discussed

Immunogenicity and safety of a quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenACYW-TT) administered as a booster to adults aged ≥59 years: A phase III randomized study

This 2-stage Phase III study (NCT04142242) of a recently licensed quadrivalent meningococcal tetanus toxoid-conjugate vaccine (MenACYW-TT) assessed the safety and immunogenicity of a booster dose in older adults (≥59 years) primed with either MenACYW-TT or a quadrivalent meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine (MPSV4). Immune persistence of MenACYW-TT and MPSV4 after primary vaccination was also evaluated. During Stage I, the participants administered MPSV4 (n = 165) or MenACYW-TT (n = 236) 3 years previously were randomized 9:2 to receive either a MenACYW-TT booster or to have blood drawn for persistence only. Participants primed with MPSV4 or MenACYW-TT 6–7 years previously had blood drawn for antibody persistence only. A serum bactericidal assay using human complement was used to measure functional antibodies against each serogroup at baseline and, for those receiving a booster, 30 days post-vaccination (D30). Proportions of participants with seroresponse (post-vaccination titers ≥1:16 when baseline titers <1:8 or ≥ 4-fold increase when baseline titers ≥1:8) were determined. Safety data were collected up to D30. Seroresponse rates for all serogroups at D30 ranged from 49.2% to 60.8% in the MPSV4-primed group, and 79.3–93.1% in the MenACYW-TT-primed group. MenACYW-TT induced sufficient seroresponses in each primed group. Geometric mean titers (GMTs) for serogroups C, W, and Y remained or trended higher than pre-vaccination levels at both 3 and 6–7 years after primary vaccination, indicating immune persistence. Safety outcomes were comparable between groups. A MenACYW-TT booster was immunogenic and well tolerated in participants aged ≥59 years regardless of previous quadrivalent meningococcal vaccine received. The greatest immune responses occurred in those primed with MenACYW-TT