Australia’s National Neisseria Network (NNN) is a collaborative network of specialised reference laboratories established across every Australian state and territory supported by the Australian Government and coordinated by the WHO Collaborating Centre for STI and AMR, New South Wales Health Pathology. Founded in 1979, the NNN is responsible for the laboratory-based phenotypic and genotypic surveillance of the pathogenic species of the Neisseria genus: Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Neisseria meningitidis. The programmes of the NNN: the Australian Gonococcal Surveillance Programme (AGSP) and the Australian Meningococcal Surveillance Programme (AMSP) publish reports quarterly and annually.
In the context of escalating disease notification rates the AGSP has reported recent increases in detection of isolates displaying decreased susceptibility to ceftriaxone and/or high-level resistance to azithromycin. For the AMSP the impact of national vaccination strategies is evident in the decline of invasive meningococcal disease cases caused by serogroups C, W, and Y and serogroup B has emerged as the dominant cause of IMD nationwide, accounting for over 80% of all laboratory-confirmed cases. Recent data from the programmes will be discussed.