ABSTRACT
This study of pharyngeal carriage of Neisseria meningitidis in a school in Niamey; Nigeria was carried out to confirm the feasibility of evaluating the impact of conjugate vaccine on the meningococcal carriage. All 90 pupils attending the school we re examined during the dry season in Feb ru a ry 1998. All ch i l d ren had been va c c i n ated using poly s a c ch a ride A/C in 1996. Samples were collected from the soft palate and immediately seeded on selective medium. After incubation at 37oC for 24 hours; suspicious colonies we re re-seeded on Muller-Hinton medium. Identifi c ation of N. meningitidis was based on standard biochemical criteria; agglutination grouping and DNA fingerprinting. Seven carriers of N. meningitidis X:NT:P1.5 were fo u n d. One of these carriers also presented a strain of N. meningi t i s A:4:P1.9. The high prevalence of serogroup X strains coincided with an outbreak of meningitis involving the same sub-type and sequence-type in Niamey