B AC K G R O U N D
All recruits in the Turkish army are immunized against
N ei ss er ia men i ng it id i s only serogroup A and C during
their first days of service. We investigated nasopharyngeal
colonization of N. meningitidis serogroup W135 in
twenty year-old healthy Turkish recruits.
M ET H O D S
We obt a ined nas o pharyngeal swabs from 330 recr uits at
a tt e nd a nce and a month later. We tested rec ov ered N.
m en i ng it id i s s t r ains with mon o cl onal ant is era for
serogrouping, and Rest r i ct ion Fragment Length Polym
o r phism for gen o t ypic analysis.
R E S U LT S
No strain of N. men i ng it id i s serogroup W135 was
cultured at attendance. At the end of the first month,
culture from three recruits (0.90%) yielded positive result
for N. men i ng it id i s serogroup W135. Genotypic
appearance of these three stains showed us that they had
two different genotypes, i.e. two different source.
CO N C L U S I O N S
The colonization rate of N. men i ng it id i s serogroup
W135 in this Recruit Center was too small (0.90%). We
need larger scaled surveillance studies to show the carriage
rate of N. meningitidis serogroup W135 in order to
change the content of meningococcal vaccine.