title: Neisseria meningitidis W-135 in the Basque Country, northern Spain.
abstract: Neisseria meningitidis W-135 accounted for nine (1.6%) of 562 cases of invasive meningococcal disease and 17 (3.9%) of 430 meningococcal isolates from healthy carriers. There was no mortality associated with the invasive nine isolates, which belonged to subtype P1.6 and geno-subtype P1.18-1. All invasive isolates and 15 of the 17 isolates from healthy carriers belonged to sequence type 22 by multilocus sequence typing, and showed a similarity of > 85% by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis following digestion with NheI. These results demonstrate that W-135 isolates in the Basque region of northern Spain have a high degree of similarity and are almost clonal.
authors.affiliation: Hospital Donostia, Servicio de Microbiolgiá, San Sebastián, Spain.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vicente
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Esnal
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Marimon
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gastesi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pérez-Trallero
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016521:Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D008589:Meningococcal Infections / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D038582:Neisseria meningitidis, Serogroup W-135 / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D012703:Serotyping; D013030:Spain / Q000453:epidemiology