Invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) is a vaccine-preventable devastating infection that mainly affects infants, children and adolescents. We describe the population epidemiology of IMD in Malta in order to assess the potential utility of a meningococcal vaccination programme. All cases of microbiologically confirmed IMD in the Maltese population from 2000 to 2017 were analysed to quantify the overall and capsular-specific disease burden. Mean overall crude and age-specific meningococcal incidence rates were calculated to identify the target age groups that would benefit from vaccination. Over the 18-year study period, 111 out of the 245 eligible notified cases were confirmed microbiologically of which 70.3% had septicaemia, 21.6% had meningitis, and 6.3% had both. The mean overall crude incidence rate was 1.49/100,000 population with an overall case fatality rate of 12.6%. Meningococcal capsular groups (Men) B followed by C were the most prevalent with W and Y appearing over the last 6 years. Infants had the highest meningococcal incidence rate of 18.9/100,000 followed by 6.1/100,000 in 1–5 year olds and 3.6/100,000 in 11–15 year old adolescents. The introduction of MenACWY and MenB vaccines on the national immunization schedule in Malta would be expected to reduce the disease burden of meningococcal disease in children and adolescents in Malta.

侵袭性脑膜炎球菌病（IMD）是一种可预防疫苗的破坏性感染，主要影响婴儿，儿童和青少年。我们描述了马耳他的IMD人口流行病学，以评估脑膜炎球菌疫苗接种计划的潜在效用。分析了2000年至2017年马耳他人群中所有经微生物学确诊的IMD病例，以量化总体疾病和荚膜特异性疾病负担。计算总体平均和特定年龄的脑膜炎球菌发病率，以确定可从疫苗接种中受益的目标年龄组。在为期18年的研究期内，通过微生物学确认的245例合格病例中，有111例得到了微生物学确诊，其中败血病占70.3％，脑膜炎占21.6％，两者均占6.3％。平均总原油发生率为1.49 / 100，000人口，总病死率为12.6％。脑膜炎球菌荚膜组（男子）B其次是C是最普遍的，在过去6年中出现了W和Y。婴儿的脑膜炎球菌发生率最高，为18.9 / 100,000，其次是1-5岁儿童（6.1 / 100,000）和11-15岁青少年（3.6 / 100,000）。预计在马耳他国家免疫计划中采用MenACWY和MenB疫苗可减轻马耳他儿童和青少年的脑膜炎球菌病的疾病负担。