Evolutionary epidemiology of Neisseria meningitidis strains in Belarus compared to other European countries

Meningococcal infections are major causes of death in children globally. In Belarus, the incidence of cases and fatality rate of meningococcal infec- tions are low and comparable to the levels in other European countries. Aim. In the present study, the molecular and epidemiological traits of Neisseria meningitidis strains circulating in Belarus were characterized and compared to isolates from other European countries. Materials and Methods. Twenty N. meningitidis strains isolated from patients (n = 13) and healthy contacts (n = 7) during 2006–2012 in Belarus were selected for multilocus sequence typing (MLST), genosubtyping and FetA typing. The STs of the Belarusian strains were phylogenetically compared to the STs of 110 se - lected strains from 22 other European countries. Results. Overall, eleven different genosubtypes were observed, there were seven variants of variable region of the fetA gene detected. The majority of the STs (95%) found in Belarus were novel and all those were submitted to the Neisseria MLST database for assignment. Several newly discovered alleles of fumC (allele 451) and gdh (allele 560 and 621) appeared to be de - scendants of alleles which are widespread in Europe, and single aroE alleles (602 and 603) occurred as a result of separate evolution. Conclusions. N. meningitidis strains circulating in Belarus are heterogeneous and include sequence types, possibly, locally evolved in Belarus as well as representatives of widespread European hyperinvasive clonal complexes