Epidemiology of bacterial meningitis in the North American Arctic, 2000–2010

Summary Objective To determine the incidence of meningitis caused by Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, and Streptococcus pneumoniae in the North American Arctic during 2000–2010. Methods Surveillance data were obtained from the International Circumpolar Surveillance network. We defined a case of bacterial meningitis caused by H. influenzae , N. meningitidis , or S. pneumoniae as a culture-positive isolate obtained from a normally sterile site in a resident with a meningitis diagnosis. Results The annual incidence/100,000 persons for meningitis caused by H. influenzae, N. meningitidis , and S. pneumoniae among all North American Arctic residents was: 0.6, 0.5, and 1.5, respectively; the meningitis incidence among indigenous persons in Alaska and Canada (indigenous status not recorded in Greenland) for those three bacteria was: 2.1, 0.8, and 2.4, respectively. The percentage of pneumococcal isolates belonging to a 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine serotype declined from 2000–2004 to 2005–2010 (31%–2%, p-value