Division of Bacterial Diseases (DBD) News Bulletin

January 4, 2012: Content on this page kept for historical reasons.

Winter 2011

Quarter 3

In early July, DBD staff moved from Building 1 to 24 on the Roybal campus. The exodus from Building 1 marked a major milestone in CDC’s history. Many people have fond memories of days gone by, when Building 1 was CDC. See the Spring/Summer Bulletin for DBD memories. See photo below.

After supporting introduction of meningococcal vaccines (MenAfriVac™) in Burkina Faso, DBD demonstrated statistically significantly lower annual attack rates compared to any year since 1997, with an 80% reduction in suspected meningitis cases in 2011. Studies of immunogenicity of vaccine in infants were also completed. Herd immunity was evaluated by enrolling 40,000 subjects in a nasopharyngeal carriage study in Burkina Faso; 0 of 15,000 subjects had nasopharyngeal carriage after implementation of vaccination. When fully implemented, this vaccine could eliminate meningococcal disease epidemics in the African Meningitis Belt, saving 123,000 lives and preventing 287,000 cases of permanent disability within ten years.

Photo: DBD All-Hands summer meeting to say goodbye to Building 1. Pictured form left to right are MVPDB’s Amanda Cohn, Elizabeth Briere, Amanda Faulkner, Stacey Martin, Matt Griffith, Jessica MacNeil and Tami Skoff.

An on-site training for 18 international scientists from 10 countries on how to use TAC (formerly known as the TaqMan® Low Density Array (TLDA) card) was held at CDC in August. TAC is changing the way DBD responds to outbreaks by being able to test for multiple pathogens from a single specimen, allowing experts to rapidly identify the etiology of a respiratory outbreak.

In August, the first-ever diagnosis and treatment guidelines for children with community-acquired pneumonia were published by the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Staff from DBD reviewed and provided input in addition to co-authoring the recommendations.

At an annual meningitis meeting held in Burkina Faso in September much of the data that DBD has worked with Burkina Faso to collect through strengthening surveillance and lab capacity was highlighted. During this trip, DBD staff met with the Minister of Health to discuss ongoing collaboration activities. See photo on previous page.

DBD was awarded $2 million in USAID funding to support MenAfriVac™ introduction in West Africa and pneumococcal vaccine introduction in Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi and Bangladesh.

Photo: Live Twitter chat with ABC News’ Dr. Rich Besser for Get Smart About Antibiotics Week. Pictured are Lauri Hicks (RDB), Alison Patti (DBD) and Darcia Johnson (RDB), with colleagues from OADC and DHQP.

To improve pertussis diagnostics, DBD, in collaboration with the Association of Public Health Laboratories, utilized Recovery Act funding to conduct lab trainings
(1 for PCR and 2 for serology) for 23 state and local public health labs.

In September, DBD and flu experts joined ABC News’ senior health and medical editor Dr. Rich Besser for a live Twitter chat on how to manage illnesses during the upcoming cold and flu season. In November, DBD joined Dr. Besser for live Twitter chats on pneumonia and Get Smart About Antibiotics Week. Approximately 5 million impressions were made per chat. See photo at right.

DBD completed a study of meningococcal conjugate vaccines in the military to determine duration of protection. After studying 1,200 participants for three years, waning of immunity was demonstrated, consistent with clinical vaccine efficacy data. These data may lead to recommendations for booster doses for military personnel that remain at increased risk.

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