Preventing meningitis and septicaemia: are we nearly there yet?

Conjugate vaccines, which combine both protein and polysaccharide antigens, can provide immunological protection for young children and could prevent many cases of meningitis and septicaemia.2 In The Lancet Infectious Diseases, Natalie Martin and colleagues present the findings from their population-based observational study, showing long-term trends in hospital admission rates in England for childhood meningitis and septicaemia due to H influenzae, meningococcus, and pneumococcus over a 50-year period.3 Their data show decreases in hospital admission for these infections after the introduction of conjugate vaccines in the UK (Hib in 1992, meningococcal C in 1999, and seven-valent pneumococcal in 2006).