Proceedings of the Expert Consensus Group meeting on meningococcal serogroup B disease burden and prevention in India

ABSTRACT

Meningococcal disease is highly transmissible, life-threatening and leaves significant sequelae in survivors. Every year, India, which has a plethora of risk factors for meningococcal disease, reports around 3000 endemic cases. However, the overall disease burden and serogroup distribution are unknown, creating a setting of general disease negligence and unawareness. Vaccination with quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine A, C, W, and Y is only recommended for high-risk children, and there is no overall guidance for meningococcal serogroup B (MenB) vaccination. MenB vaccines, which recently have been licensed in many countries but not in India, have significantly aided the fight against meningococcal disease. However, these MenB vaccines are not available in India. An Expert Consensus Group meeting was held with leading meningococcal disease experts to better understand the current disease epidemiology, particularly serogroup B, the prevalence gaps, and feasible ways to bridge them. The proceedings are presented in this paper.

KEYWORDS:

• Disease surveillance
• epidemiology
• India
• meningococcal disease
• meningococcal serogroup B
• vaccination

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the global and regional teams of GSK, in particular, Ashish Agrawal (Field-Based Medical Affairs, India Vaccines Medical/Clinical) for the coordination of this work, Rupali Kadam, and Sanjeeb Rath for the conduct and coordination of the meeting. The authors thank the Business & Decision Life Sciences platform for editorial assistance and manuscript coordination, on behalf of GSK. Quentin Rayee coordinated the manuscript development and editorial support. Athanasia Benekou provided medical writing support.

Disclosure statement

VA, SK, and SA are employed by the GSK group of companies. VA and SK also hold shares in the GSK group of companies. VA, SK, and SA declare no other financial and non-financial relationships and activities. APD and RDH declare no financial and non-financial relationships and activities and no conflicts of interest.

Authorsʻ contributions

SA was in charge of supervision and project administration and performed data curation and investigation. All authors participated in the discussion and the development of this manuscript and gave final approval before submission.

Availability of data and materials

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Abbreviations

CI	=	confidence interval
CFRs	=	case fatality rates
EU	=	European Union
GSK	=	GlaxoSmithKline
IMD	=	invasive meningococcal disease
MenACWY	=	quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine serogroups A, C, W, and Y
MenB	=	meningococcal serogroup B
OR	=	odds ratio
PCR	=	polymerase chain reaction
UK	=	United Kingdom
US	=	United States

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA funded this research and was involved in all stages of manuscript development, including analysis of the data. GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA also took charge of all costs associated with the development and publication of this manuscript.