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Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary

Active smoking is a recognized risk factor of various infectious diseases. In a systematic review published in BMC Public Health, Murray et al. demonstrated that exposure to passive smoking significantly increased the risk of meningococcal disease among children. Their review especially highlights t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Rashid, Harunor, Booy, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3568012/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23228079
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-160
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author Rashid, Harunor
Booy, Robert
author_facet Rashid, Harunor
Booy, Robert
author_sort Rashid, Harunor
collection PubMed
description Active smoking is a recognized risk factor of various infectious diseases. In a systematic review published in BMC Public Health, Murray et al. demonstrated that exposure to passive smoking significantly increased the risk of meningococcal disease among children. Their review especially highlights that the risk remains high even if the exposure occurs during pregnancy or after birth, although the authors could not disentangle the independent effects of smoking during pregnancy from those in the postnatal period. How passive smoking increases the risk of childhood meningococcal disease is not precisely known. Both exposure to 'smoke', or 'smokers' (who are highly susceptible to pharyngeal carriage of meningococci) are postulated mechanisms, but unfortunately very few studies have examined the risk of exposure by considering these two variables separately, and this therefore remains a research priority. Quitting may well be the mainstay of preventing tobacco-related hazards but the available global data suggest that most smokers are reluctant to quit. Among other interventions, immunizing children with a meningococcal conjugate vaccine could, theoretically, reduce the risk of meningococcal disease among children and their smoker household contacts through herd immunity. See related article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/1062
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spelling pubmed-35680122013-02-13 Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary Rashid, Harunor Booy, Robert BMC Med Commentary Active smoking is a recognized risk factor of various infectious diseases. In a systematic review published in BMC Public Health, Murray et al. demonstrated that exposure to passive smoking significantly increased the risk of meningococcal disease among children. Their review especially highlights that the risk remains high even if the exposure occurs during pregnancy or after birth, although the authors could not disentangle the independent effects of smoking during pregnancy from those in the postnatal period. How passive smoking increases the risk of childhood meningococcal disease is not precisely known. Both exposure to 'smoke', or 'smokers' (who are highly susceptible to pharyngeal carriage of meningococci) are postulated mechanisms, but unfortunately very few studies have examined the risk of exposure by considering these two variables separately, and this therefore remains a research priority. Quitting may well be the mainstay of preventing tobacco-related hazards but the available global data suggest that most smokers are reluctant to quit. Among other interventions, immunizing children with a meningococcal conjugate vaccine could, theoretically, reduce the risk of meningococcal disease among children and their smoker household contacts through herd immunity. See related article http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/1062 BioMed Central 2012-12-10 /pmc/articles/PMC3568012/ /pubmed/23228079 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-160 Text en Copyright ©2012 Rashid and Booy; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Commentary
Rashid, Harunor
Booy, Robert
Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
title Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
title_full Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
title_fullStr Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
title_full_unstemmed Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
title_short Passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
title_sort passive smoking, invasive meningococcal disease and preventive measures: a commentary
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3568012/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23228079
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-160
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