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Neisseria meningitidis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David S. Stephens
David S. Stephens*
Affiliation:
Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, VA Medical Center and Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia
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Extract

Neisseria meningitidis is an exclusive human pathogen. The organism was first recognized by Weichselbaum in 1887 in the spinal fluid of six patients with acute cerebrospinal meningitis. He called it Diplococcus intracellularis meningitidis because of the presence of the organism within leukocytes from the spinal fluid. Subsequent studies established the meningococcus as the cause of epidemic cerebrospinal fever and placed the organism in the genus Neisseria. Despite the availability of effective antimicrobials and partially effective vaccines, N. meningitidis remains one of the most frequent causes of rapidly fatal sepsis and meningitis.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1985 , pp. 37 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America 1985 

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