Invasive disease caused by the encapsulated bacteria Neisseria meningitidis, Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, despite the introduction of successful conjugate polysaccharide vaccines that target disease-associated strains. In addition, resistance, or more accurately reduced susceptibility, to therapeutic antibiotics is spreading in populations of these organisms. There is therefore a continuing requirement for the surveillance of vaccine and non-vaccine antigens and antibiotic susceptibilities among isolates from invasive disease, which is only partially met by conventional methods. This need can be met with molecular and especially nucleotide sequence-based typing methods, which are fully developed in the case of N. meningitidis and which could be more widely deployed in clinical laboratories for S. pneumoniae and H. influenzae.

Academic Medical Center Department of Medical Microbiology Reference Laboratory for Bacterial Meningitis PO Box 22660 1100 DD Amsterdam The Netherlands

Department of Bacteriology and Immunology Norwegian Institute of Public Health PO Box 4404 Nydalen NO 0403 Oslo Norway

Department of Laboratory Medicine Clinical Microbiology and Immunology Orebro University Hospital SE 701 85 Orebro Sweden

Department of Zoology University of Oxford South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3PS UK

Institut für Hygiene und Mikrobiologie Universität Würzburg Josef Schneider Strasse 2 97080 Würzburg Germany

Institut Pasteur 28 rue du Dr Roux 75724 Paris Cedex 15 France

Meningococcal Reference Unit Health Protection Agency PO Box 209 Clinical Sciences Building 2 Manchester Royal Infirmary Oxford Road Manchester M13 9WZ UK

National Reference Laboratory for Meningococcal Infections National Institute of Public Health Srobarova 48 Prague Czech Republic

Österreichische Agentur für Gesundheit und Ernährungssicherheit GmbH Bereich Humanmedizin Institut für medizinische Mikrobiologie und Hygiene Beethovenstraße 6 A 8010 Graz Austria

Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections 61 Colindale Avenue London NW9 5EQ UK

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