Carriage of Neisseria meningitidis and Neisseria lactamica among ethnic Greek school children from Russian immigrant families in Athens

During February and March 1995, a survey of meningococcal carriage in 625 s chool children was carried out in a suburb of Athens in which there was a l arge number of ethnic Greeks who had immigrated from Russia beginning in th e early 1990s. The objectives of the study were: (1) to determine if factor s associated with carriage of meningococci observed in a previous study of creek school children were similar for the immigrant population I (2) to co mpare phenotypic characteristics of meningococci from the immigrant populat ion with those isolated from children in Athens. Overall isolation rate for meningococci was 82/625 (13.1%,), significantly higher than that found for school children in Athens (5.8%) during the winter of 1990-1991 (5.8%) (ch i(2) = 25.98, P = 0.0000003). By univariate analysis, carriage was not asso ciated with sex, number of individuals per household, blood group, secretor status, socioeconomic level or maternal smoking; however, it was associate d with fat hers' smoking. The high proportion of men who smoked compared wi th the low proportion of women smokers might contribute to this finding. Th e main serogroup of meningococci isolated from this population was A (28%). While serogroup A appears to be more prevalent among Russian and Kurdish i mmigrants (14%) than among Greek school children or military recruits (4%), there has not been an increase in group A meningococcal disease in Greece. The isolation rate for N. lactamica was high 105/625 (17.3%). A few of the se strains bound some of the monoclonal antibodies used for meningococcal s erotyping and subtyping, and they are being examined in greater detail. (C) 1999 Federation of European Microbiological Societies. Published by Elsevi er Science B.V. All rights reserved.