ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2004
Diversity in pathogenicity can cause outbreaks of meningococcal disease.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2004. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Emergence of short-lived meningococci causing focal epidemics can be associated with gene transfer from carriage-associatedbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Review
- Evaluating the Impact of Meningococcal Vaccines With Synthetic Controls.American journal of epidemiology · 2022Article
- The Host-Pathogen Interactions and Epicellular Lifestyle ofFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2022Review
- Modelling evolutionary pathways for commensalism and hypervirulence inMicrobial genomics · 2021Article
- Diversification in immunogenicity genes caused by selective pressures in invasive meningococci.Microbial genomics · 2020Article
- Identification of Functional Genetic Polymorphisms at IL-10 Promoter Region and their Association with Risk of Ischemic Stroke in Chinese Han Population.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2018Article
- The impact of aggregating serogroups in dynamic models of Neisseria meningitidis transmission.BMC infectious diseases · 2015Article
- Are we modelling the correct dataset? Minimizing false predictions for dengue fever in Thailand.Epidemiology and infection · 2014Article
- Metabolism and virulence in Neisseria meningitidis.Frontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2014Review
- Spatial dynamics of meningococcal meningitis in Niger: observed patterns in comparison with measles.Epidemiology and infection · 2012Article
- Can we, should we, eradicate the meningococcus?Vaccine · 2012Review
- The changing epidemiology of meningococcal disease in Quebec, Canada, 1991-2011: potential implications of emergence of new strains.PloS one · 2012Article
- Development of a multiplex PCR assay for detection and genogrouping of Neisseria meningitidis.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2012Article
- Quasi-neutral theory of epidemic outbreaks.PloS one · 2011Article
- Review
- Role of selection in the emergence of lineages and the evolution of virulence in Neisseria meningitidis.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2008Article
- Invasive meningococcal disease epidemiology and control measures: a framework for evaluation.BMC public health · 2007Article
- Vaccination and the dynamics of immune evasion.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2007Article
- Consecutive use of two multiplex PCR-based assays for simultaneous identification and determination of capsular status of nine common Neisseria meningitidis serogroups associated with invasive disease.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2006Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Neisseria meningitidis, the meningococcus, is a major cause of bacterial meningitis and septicemia worldwide. Infection in most cases leads to asymptomatic carriage and only rarely to disease. Meningococcal disease often occurs in outbreaks, which are both sporadic and highly unpredictable. The occurrence of disease outbreaks in a host population in which the etiological agent is widely carried is not well understood. A potential explanation lies in the fact that meningococci are diverse with respect to disease-causing potential. We formulated a stochastic mathematical model to investigate whether diversity of the bacterial population is related to outbreaks of meningococcal disease. In the model, strains that occasionally cause the disease appear repeatedly in a population dominated by a nonpathogenic strain. When the pathogenicity, i.e., the disease-causing potential, of the pathogenic lineage was low, the model shows distinct outbreaks, the size distribution of the outbreaks follows a power law, and the ratio of the variance to the mean number of cases is high. Analysis of notification data of meningococcal disease showed that the ratio of the variance to the mean was significantly higher for meningococcal diseases than for other bacterial invasive diseases. This result lends support to the hypothesis that outbreaks of meningococcal disease are caused by diversity in the pathogenicity of meningococcal strains.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.