Creating a national service for the diagnosis of meningococcal disease by polymerase chain reaction.

The widening gap observed between numbers of culture confirmed and notified cases of meningococcal infection has driven the development of non-culture based polymerase chain reactions (PCRs) to enhance the detection of meningococcal disease. The development of a national PCR-based service increased the number of laboratory confirmed cases of meningococcal disease by 35% in the first year. Advancing technology in the laboratory is reducing in-lab processing time.