INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR DISPATCHES Population-based Survey of Invasive Bacterial Diseases, Greenland

• Main Authors: Annette Meyer, Karin Ladefoged, Peter Poulsen, Anders Koch
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Greenland; International Polar Year; inuit; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.306.7209; http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/14/1/pdfs/07-1240.pdf

Invasive bacterial disease occurs frequently among native populations in the Arctic. Although a variety of bacteria are involved in invasive bacterial disease in Greenland, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and other staphylococci are responsible for most cases (69%); incidence varies according to region and ethnicity. The incidence of invasive disease caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae and several other bacteria is markedly higher in the Inuit populations of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland than in the non-Inuit populations of the same areas (1–3). The clinical extent of invasive disease caused by S. pneumoniae is severe; sequelae and case-fatality rates are almost 4 × higher in native than in nonnative populations (1,4). As living conditions in Arctic populations in many ways are comparable, an international, cooperative, population-based surveillance for invasive diseases was established in 1999 (5). The International Circumpolar Surveillance (ICS) network registers invasive disease caused by S. pneumoniae, Haemophilus infl uenzae, Neisseria meningitidis, group A streptococcus, and group B streptococcus