Meningitis Vax Works -- for Gonorrhea Unexpected finding might point way to first vaccine against the disease

A mass vaccination campaign against meningitis B had an unexpected benefit -- a drop in gonorrhea incidence, researchers reported. In a case-control study in New Zealand, young people vaccinated against serogroup B Neisseria meningitides were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with gonorrhea, according to Helen Petousis-Harris, PhD, of the University of Auckland, and colleagues. The finding suggests that the outer membrane vesicle (OMV) vaccine against meningitis B might provide a guide toward the first vaccine that would prevent Neisseria gonorrhoeae infection, Petousis-Harris and colleagues wrote in the Lancet Infectious Diseases. (The group had reported preliminary data, with the same overall conclusion, in September 2016 at the STD Prevention Conference.) https://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/STDs/66531?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2017-07-11&eun=g721819d0r&pos=1