Inve stigafion on the status of healthy population carrying bacterial pathogens of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis in Guizhou Province in 2005

Objective The present study was conducted to get an insight into the status of healthy population carrying bacterial pathogens of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis and provide a scientific basis for the prevention and control of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis in Guizhou Province．Methods Throat swab specimens from healthy people and those who had had close contact with the patients were collected for culture，identification and analysis．Results Nine hun-dred and four specimens from healthy population and 56 from those who had had close contact with the patients were cultured and 17 strains of Neisseria meningitides were isolated from the former and 6 strains from the later．With the average detection rate being 1.88％and 10.71％，respectively．Of the isolated，there were 19 strains of group A Neisseria meningitides，accounting for 82.61％．It was found that students in the age group from 10 to 14 years had the highest car- rier rate(5.56％)．The five strains of Neisseria meningitides isolated from cerebrospinal fluid spec-imens of 44 patients were all of group A．Conclusion It is seen that epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis is predominantly caused by group A Neisseria meningitides with students under age of 14 years being at high risk．It is suggested that strengthening the prevention of epidemic cere-brospinal meningitis through vaccination and etiological surveillance should be given top priority in the prevention and control of epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis in Guizhou Province．