Management of meningococcal outbreaks: are we using the same language? Comparison of the public health policies between high-income countries with low incidence of meningococcal disease

Background: Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) in high-income countries usually occurs sporadically with low incidence and occasionally as small clusters or outbreaks.

The WHO guidelines (GLs) for IMD outbreak applies only to African countries with high endemic incidence. Several high-income countries developed their own GLs on IMD outbreak, and we compare their terminology, classification, definitions, and public health interventions.

Methods: National IMD outbreak GLs of the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member states were compared. Due to linguistic barriers, 17 out of forty-one countries were selected, and the GLs on the websites of the national health authorities were independently screened by two researchers.

Results: National GLs on IMD outbreak were available for 12 countries. All GLs classify IMD outbreak into organization and community based using different terminology (cluster, epidemic, etc.). Two GLs introduce also a third condition of hyperendemic. Definitions, thresholds, and countermeasures vary among countries.

Conclusions: Different definitions of organization and community-based outbreaks and countermeasures are expected because of uncertainties about their effectiveness, and differences between countries in health-care systems and public health policy approaches.

Nevertheless, variations in terminology, definitions and countermeasures are confusing and reflect the need for an international standardization.