Invasive meningococcal disease in Spain, 2024

Abstract

Introduction: The invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is a serious infectious disease under mandatory surveillance in Spain. The objective is to describe the epidemiology of IMD in Spain during 2024 and to compare it to previous years.

Methods: A descriptive epidemiological analysis was conducted on IMD cases reported to the National Epidemiological Surveillance Network (RENAVE) in 2024. Variables analysed included sex, age group, symptom onset date, reporting autonomous community or city, death, clinical manifestation, and serogroup.

Results: In 2024, 336 cases of IMD were reported (53.0% female) with a cumulative incidence rate (AIR) of 0.68. The highest incidence rate in 2024 were observed in children under 1 year of age. The presentation of cases followed the typical seasonal pattern of this disease, with a higher number in autumn and winter. The most frequent clinical manifestation was sepsis accounting the 36.7% of the reported cases. The case fatality rate (9.23%) was lower than the observed in 2023. The serotype of 5.1% of the reported cases of IMD was unknown. Of the cases in which this information was recorded, 59.2% corresponded to serogroup B.

Discussion: an increasing of incidence rate of IMD occurred in 2024 compared to the previous period (2020-2023), reaching the pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.

Improved reporting of microbiological characterization and vaccination data is crucial for conducting IMD surveillance and for the evaluation of the vaccination program.