Acute community-acquired meningitis and encephalitis

In reply: We thank Saltman for up-to-date information on Wyeth vaccines. Readers will appreciate that our article1 was commissioned in January 2001, and the manuscript delivered in August that year, before the licensing of Meningitec. As the article discussed, group C meningococcus is a minority strain in most regions of Australia. Hence, the vaccine will not prevent most cases of what is already an uncommon disease. Conjugate pneumococcal vaccines should have much wider application in the future, but currently are subsidised for use in only a minority of the at-risk population.