Thread by @ShamezLadhani

1/ In 2015, the UK became the first country to implement a protein-based Meningococcal B vaccine (4CMenB) into the infant immunisation programme

Here, we show that vaccinated kids are now infected with different MenB strains than unvaccinated kids…🧵

👉journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-…

2/ We recently showed that the UK 4CMenB infant immunisation programme is highly effective in preventing #meningitis/septicemia caused by group B meningococcal bacteria (MenB), the predominating serogroup (strain) causing invasive disease in Europe

👉 nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

3/ Since then we also showed 4CMenB can also protect against other meningococcal serogroups such as MenW because the proteins in the 4CMenB vaccine are present on the surface of all meningococci (not just MenB)

👉 academic.oup.com/cid/article-ab…

4/ In the current study, although the risk of meningococcal disease was much lower in vaccinated kids, they were more likely to be infected with strains that are poorly-covered by 4CMenB (eg. cc23) & less likely by well-covered strains (eg. cc41/44)

👉 journalofinfection.com/article/S0163-…

5/ This is not surprising because 4CMenB was never expected to protect against all MenB strains. 72-88% of MenB strains in England would be covered based on how well their surface proteins match those in the vaccine👉MenB disease after vaccine is not necessarily *vaccine failure*

6/ By studying the strains causing disease in vaccinated & unvaccinated kids, we can identify additional meningococcal surface proteins (eg. variant 2 or 3 fHbp peptides) that could be added to next generation protein-based meningococcal vaccines to provide ⬆️ protection

…/ End