From the *Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD; †Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA; ‡Meningitis and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Branch, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA; §Public Health Division, Oregon Department of Human Services, Portland, OR; ¶Health Service Region 6 and 5 South, Texas Department of State Health Services, Houston, TX; ∥Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division, Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul, MN; **Emerging Infections Program, Connecticut Department of Public Health, Hartford, CT; ††Division of Public Health, Georgia Department of Human Resources, Atlanta, GA; ‡‡Communicable and Environmental Disease Services, Tennessee Department of Health, Nashville, TN; and §§Division of Public Health Services, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, Concord, NH.
Additional material related to this article and only published online can be accessed on the Web by clicking on the “ArticlePlus” link either in the Table of Contents or at the top of the Abstract or HTML version of the article.
Accepted for publication September 25, 2007.
This work was supported by sanofi pasteur, the State of Maryland, the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, and a career development award to Dr. Harrison, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (K24 AI52788). Sanofi pasteur had no role in the design or conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, or interpretation of the data; or preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
This publication made use of the Neisseria Multi Locus Sequence Typing website (http://pubmlst.org/neisseria/) developed by Keith Jolley and Man-Suen Chan and located at the University of Oxford.35 The development of this site has been funded by the Wellcome Trust and European Union.
Dr. Harrison has received consulting fees and speaking honoraria from sanofi pasteur, Novartis Vaccines, and GlaxoSmithKline and receives research funding from sanofi pasteur.
Dr. Harrison had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Data analysis was performed by Ms. Shutt under the direction of Dr. Harrison.
This study was presented in part at the 15th International Pathogenic Neisseria Conference in Cairns, Australia, in September 2006.
Address for correspondence: Lee H. Harrison, Infectious Diseases Epidemiology Research Unit, 521 Parran Hall, 130 Desoto Street, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261. E-mail: [email protected].
