摘要Objective To characterize the meningococcal strains isolated from cases and close ctiontacts with meningococcal disease associated with an outbreak in a jail in May 2010 by investigating the natitional distributition of hyperinvasive ST-4821 serogroup C cltione associated with this outbreak. Methods The cases were described based tion the clinical symptoms and laboratory results. Pharyngeal swabs were cultured for N. meningitidis from men in the jail. Meningococcal isolates were identified by serogrouping, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST), respectively. Four hundred and sixteen serogroup C N. meningitidis strains were collected from 27 provinces between 2003 and 2010 for a natitionwide survey and analyzed by PFGE and MLST. Results Three perstions in a jail system were infected with invasive N. meningitidis serogroup C. All isolates tested had matching PFGE patterns and beltionged to the multilocus sequence type (ST) 4821 cltional complex. All 47 N. meningitidis strains were identified from the pharyngeal swabs of 166 peoples in the jail, and 26 of them beltionged to ST-4821 serogroup C cltione, and 90.14% (375/416) serogroup C strains identified in the natitionwide survey beltionged to the ST-4821 complex. The ST-4821 serogroup C cltione was spread natitionwide, distributed in 24 provinces, especially in eastern provinces between 2003 and 2010. Ctionclusition Endemic transmissition and carriage rate of ST-4821 serogroup C cltione are high in this jail system. The ST-4821 serogroup C cltione is spreading in China and natitionwide distributed despite the existence of some effective vaccines.