Meningococcemia screening

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] ; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Ammu Susheela, M.D. [2]

Routine screening is not recommended for meningococcemia.

• Routine antimicrobial susceptibility testing of meningococcal isolates is not currently recommended.
• Surveillance of susceptibility patterns in populations should be conducted in order to monitor trends in N. meningitidis susceptibility.
• State and local health departments should notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) if resistance to ciprofloxacin or other agents used for treatment or prophylaxis is detected.
• Passive and active surveillance systems are used to monitor meningococcal disease, which is a reportable disease in the United States. Through a national passive reporting system, state health departments collect and transmit weekly reports of cases to CDC through the National Electronic Telecommunications System for Surveillance (NETSS).
• The goals of meningococcal surveillance are:

• To detect outbreaks of meningococcal disease so that appropriate control measures can be promptly instituted, and
• To assess changes in the epidemiology of meningococcal disease over time to permit the most efficient allocation of resources and formulation of the most effective disease control and prevention policies.

• Meningococcal serogroup surveillance data are important to monitor the impact of quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine.
• Meningococcal serogroup data also help to determine the epidemiologic link between cases in cluster or outbreak situations.^[1]