We conducted a European survey in 2007 to compare how different countries managed cases of meningococcal disease and their contacts. We sent questionnaires to 27 national public health institutes and received responses from 22 countries. We found that while all countries recommended antibiotics for close contacts, there were significant differences in how they defined close contacts and which antibiotics or vaccines they used. These variations were often due to a lack of clear evidence on the best prevention and treatment strategies. We also noticed that communication about changes in guidelines was sometimes inefficient. Based on our findings, we recommended developing evidence-based or consensus-driven guidance for best practices to help harmonize public health policies across Europe.
In this overview, we identified numerous inconsistencies in how contacts of meningococcal disease cases were managed, which were not always supported by the available evidence. This publication marked the beginning of a long‑term and highly productive collaboration with an excellent consortium of experts led by James Stuart. In the years that followed, we worked together on developing evidence‑based guidelines for EU countries and repeated the country survey approximately ten years later. I first met James during the EPIET training modules, where we discovered a shared passion for the epidemiology of invasive meningococcal disease 🙂.