Meningococcal carriage in children and young adults in the Philippines: a single group, cross-sectional study.

This cross-sectional prevalence study investigates meningococcal carriage for the first time in a Southeast Asian population. Posterior pharyngeal swabs were collected between August 2013 and March 2014 from 937 healthy Filipinos aged 5–24 years attending school or university in Manila. Of these, 35 were found to be carriers giving an overall carriage prevalence of 3·7% [95% confidence interval (CI) 2·6–5·2]. Carriage was associated with age ( P Neisseria meningitidis in a healthy subset of the Filipino population and illustrates the importance of generating local carriage data.