Pediatrics

Epitope

Immunization

Reverse vaccinology

Bacteria

Biology

Antigen

Intensive care medicine

Virology

Immunology

Neisseria meningitidis

Meningococcal disease

Meningitis

Conjugate vaccine

Bacterial meningitis

Meningococcal vaccine

Meningococcal meningitis

Genetics

Medicine

Vaccines

Neisseria meningitidis causes most cases of bacterial meningitis. Meningococcal meningitis is a public health burden to both developed and developing countries throughout the world. There are a number of vaccines (polysaccharide-based, glycoconjugate, protein-based and combined conjugate vaccines) that are approved to target five of the six disease-causing serogroups of the pathogen. Immunization strategies have been effective at helping to decrease the global incidence of meningococcal meningitis. Researchers continue to enhance these efforts through discovery of new antigen targets that may lead to a broadly protective vaccine and development of new methods of homogenous vaccine production. This review describes current meningococcal vaccines and discusses some recent research discoveries that may transform vaccine development against N. meningitidis in the future.

Meningococcal Vaccines: Current Status and Emerging Strategies