Liu Zhenhua, Guo Jian, Rao Guihua, Wang Qiang, Jiang Yue, Lv Panpan, Zhao Fang, Chen Mingliang
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Minhang Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Shanghai East Hospital, Tongji University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Int J Infect Dis. 2025 Sep;158:107970. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2025.107970. Epub 2025 Jun 25.
Neisseria meningitidis (Nm) is responsible for invasive meningococcal disease (IMD), with relatively few reports of causing urogenital and anorectal infections. This study reported the emergence of three urethritis cases in male adults caused by Nm isolates during 2021 and 2024 in Shanghai, China. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the three isolates were closely related with strains causing IMD in the US (Y:ST-1466) and Japan (NG:ST-11026), respectively. Notably, all three isolates in this study harbored penicillin resistance and the norB-aniA gene cassette originating not from N. gonorrhoeae, which differed from the US urethritis clade in 2015. These three urethritis isolates were also predicted to be covered by Trumenba. Nm strains causing urogenital infections have emerged in China.
