SynthesisEpidemiology and infection2019
Meningococcal carriage by age in the African meningitis belt: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Epidemiology and infection, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Carriage prevalence of Neisseria meningitidis in China, 2005-2022: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC infectious diseases · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic review of invasive meningococcal disease epidemiology in the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa region.BMC infectious diseases · 2021Pooled it
- Serogroup-specific meningococcal carriage by age group: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2019Pooled it
- Review
- Profile of bacterial meningitis pathogens circulating in a cohort of school children in Côte d'Ivoire using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Meningococcal carriage among high school and university students in Gondar, Northwestern Ethiopia.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- ModelingInfectious Disease Modelling · 2025Article
- Association among persistent chemical pollutants and infectious encephalitis: a mixture exposure and mediation approach.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Meningococcal Vaccination in the United States: Past, Present, And Future.Paediatric drugs · 2025Review
- Spatiotemporal dynamics of the oropharyngeal microbiome in a cohort of Ivorian school children.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization recommendations for use of a novel pentavalent meningococcal ACWXY vaccine: a critical step towards ending meningococcal epidemics in Africa.Journal of travel medicine · 2024Article
- Geographical distribution of invasive meningococcal disease and carriage: A spatial analysis.Epidemiology and infection · 2024Article
- Meningococcal A conjugate vaccine coverage in the meningitis belt of Africa from 2010 to 2021: a modelling study.EClinicalMedicine · 2023Article
- Article
- Meningococcal Carriage among Household Contacts of Patients with Invasive Meningococcal Disease in Kathmandu, Nepal: A Longitudinal Study.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Understanding the Role of Duration of Vaccine Protection with MenAfriVac: Simulating Alternative Vaccination Strategies.Microorganisms · 2021Article
- Coexistence and management of COVID-19 pandemic with other epidemics in West Africa: lessons learnt and policy implications.The Pan African medical journal · 2021Article
- Identification of the nasopharyngeal carriage of Neisseria meningitidis by 16S rRNA Gene sequencing in asymptomatic adolescents and young adults in Cartagena, Colombia (2019-2020).The Brazilian journal of infectious diseases : an official publication of the Brazilian Society of Infectious DiseasesArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Meningococcal carriage dynamics drive patterns of invasive disease. The distribution of carriage by age has been well described in Europe, but not in the African meningitis belt, a region characterised by frequent epidemics of meningitis. We aimed to estimate the age-specific prevalence of meningococcal carriage by season in the African meningitis belt. We searched PubMed, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library and grey literature for papers reporting carriage of Neisseria meningitidis in defined age groups in the African meningitis belt. We used a mixed-effects logistic regression to model meningococcal carriage prevalence as a function of age, adjusting for season, location and year. Carriage prevalence increased from low prevalence in infants (0.595% in the rainy season, 95% CI 0.482-0.852%) to a broad peak at age 10 (1.94%, 95% CI 1.87-2.47%), then decreased in adolescence. The odds of carriage were significantly increased during the dry season (OR 1.5 95% CI 1.4-1.7) and during outbreaks (OR 6.7 95% CI 1.6-29). Meningococcal carriage in the African meningitis belt peaks at a younger age compared to Europe. This is consistent with contact studies in Africa, which show that children 10-14 years have the highest frequency of contacts. Targeting older children in Africa for conjugate vaccination may be effective in reducing meningococcal transmission.
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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.