Benign meningococcemia with IgG and IgM antimeningococcal antibodies measured by ELISA

Six patients with benign meningococcemia are presented. The clinical picture was typically intermittent fever with chills, skin eruptions, maculopapules (often hemorrhagic) and arthritis/arthralgia in a person in good general condition. Meningococci of serogroup B were isolated from the blood of 3 patients, from the cerebrospinal fluid of 1 patient and from the nasopharynx of the remaining 2 patients. In 4 patients we assayed the levels of IgG and IgM antibodies against meningococcus serogroup B in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent test (ELISA), using whole bacteria as the antigen. All of them had higher antibody levels than the geometric means for healthy controls of both IgG and IgM, except for 1 patient who did not develop IgG antibodies.