Australia implemented conjugate meningococcal C immunization in 2003 with a single scheduled dose at age 12 months and catch-up for individuals aged 2–19 years. Several countries have recently added one or more booster doses to their programmes to maintain disease control. Australian disease surveillance and vaccine coverage data were used to assess longer term vaccine coverage and impact on invasive serogroup C disease incidence and mortality, and review vaccine failures. Coverage was 93% in 1-year-olds and 70% for catch-up cohorts. In 10 years, after adjusting for changes in diagnostic practices, population invasive serogroup C incidence declined 96% (95% confidence interval 94–98) to 0·4 and 0·6 cases/million in vaccinated and unvaccinated cohorts, respectively. Only three serogroup C deaths occurred in 2010–2012 vs. 68 in 2000–2002. Four (<1/million doses) confirmed vaccine failures were identified in 10 years with no increasing trend. Despite published evidence of waning antibody over time, an ongoing single dose of meningococcal C conjugate vaccine in the second year of life following widespread catch-up has resulted in near elimination of serogroup C disease in all age groups without evidence of vaccine failures in the first decade since introduction. Concurrently, serogroup B incidence declined independently by 55%.

Pertussis or whooping cough is a highly contagious community disease mainly caused by Bordetella pertussis and B. parapertussis. We report a minor outbreak of whooping cough (2009–2010) in symptomatic subjects from Bisham, near Swat, Khyber Pukhtoonkhawa province, Pakistan. Interestingly, our results show that all the culture-positive isolates (n = 21) collected from children (average age 3·46 years), were identified as B. parapertussis after routine identification tests and PCR IS481, IS1001 and IS1002. Furthermore, in the affected patients, none had received immunization with diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DTPw) vaccine. Therefore, the possibility of the re-emergence of the disease due to limitation of basic health services as a result of the political unrest due to the 9/11 situation is also examined. Moreover, we discuss the importance of vaccinating both adults and children with DTPwPaw vaccine containing both organisms for better protection.