Rodgers, ElizabethBentley, Stephen DBorrow, RayBratcher, Holly BBrisse, SylvainBrueggemann, Angela BCaugant, Dominique AFindlow, JamieFox, LeAnneGlennie, LindaHarrison, Lee HHarrison, Odile BHeyderman, Robert Svan Rensburg, Melissa JansenJolley, Keith AKwambana-Adams, BrendaLadhani, ShamezLaForce, MarcLevin, MichaelLucidarme, JayMacAlasdair, NeilMaclennan, JennyMaiden, Martin C JMaynard-Smith, LauraMuzzi, AlessandroOster, PhilippRodrigues, Charlene M CRonveaux, OlivierSerino, LauraSmith, Vinnyvan der Ende, ArieVazquez-Moreno, Julio AlbertoWang, XinYezli, SaberStuart, James M2021-02-162021-02-162020-10J Infect . 2020 Oct;81(4):510-520.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12105/11913Genomic surveillance of bacterial meningitis pathogens is essential for effective disease control globally, enabling identification of emerging and expanding strains and consequent public health interventions. While there has been a rise in the use of whole genome sequencing, this has been driven predominately by a subset of countries with adequate capacity and resources. Global capacity to participate in surveillance needs to be expanded, particularly in low and middle-income countries with high disease burdens. In light of this, the WHO-led collaboration, Defeating Meningitis by 2030 Global Roadmap, has called for the establishment of a Global Meningitis Genome Partnership that links resources for: N. meningitidis (Nm), S. pneumoniae (Sp), H. influenzae (Hi) and S. agalactiae (Sa) to improve worldwide co-ordination of strain identification and tracking. Existing platforms containing relevant genomes include: PubMLST: Nm (31,622), Sp (15,132), Hi (1935), Sa (9026); The Wellcome Sanger Institute: Nm (13,711), Sp (> 24,000), Sa (6200), Hi (1738); and BMGAP: Nm (8785), Hi (2030). A steering group is being established to coordinate the initiative and encourage high-quality data curation. Next steps include: developing guidelines on open-access sharing of genomic data; defining a core set of metadata; and facilitating development of user-friendly interfaces that represent publicly available data.engVoRhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Bacterial meningitisEpidemiologyGenome partnershipHaemophilus influenzaeNeisseria meningitidisStreptococcus agalactiaeStreptococcus pneumoniaeWhole genome sequencingAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional32615197814510-52010.1016/j.jinf.2020.06.0641532-2742The Journal of infectionopen access