Culture and Real-time Polymerase Chain reaction sensitivity in the diagnosis of invasive meningococcal disease: Does culture miss less severe cases?

• Sara Guiducci ,

  Contributed equally to this work with: Sara Guiducci, Silvia Ricci

  Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft

  Affiliations Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy, Pediatric Clinic 2, Pediatric Immunology, Meyer Children’s Hospital, Florence, Italy

  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6771-2331

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• Maria Moriondo,

  Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation

  Affiliation Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

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• Francesco Nieddu ,

  Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft

  * E-mail: chiara.azzari@unifi.it

  Affiliations Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy, Pediatric Clinic 2, Pediatric Immunology, Meyer Children’s Hospital, Florence, Italy

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• Silvia Ricci ,

  Contributed equally to this work with: Sara Guiducci, Silvia Ricci

  Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Writing – original draft

  Affiliations Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy, Pediatric Clinic 2, Pediatric Immunology, Meyer Children’s Hospital, Florence, Italy

  http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7140-1694

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• Elisa De Vitis,

  Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology

  Affiliations Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy, Pediatric Clinic 2, Pediatric Immunology, Meyer Children’s Hospital, Florence, Italy

  http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4922-7383

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• Arianna Casini,

  Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation

  Affiliation Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy

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• Giovanni Maria Poggi,

  Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Validation

  Affiliations Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy, Department of Interdisciplinary Pediatrics, Section of Medical Pediatrics, Meyer Children's Hospital, Florence, Italy

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• Giuseppe Indolfi,

  Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation

  Affiliation Department of Interdisciplinary Pediatrics, Section of Medical Pediatrics, Meyer Children's Hospital, Florence, Italy

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• Massimo Resti,

  Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Validation

  Affiliation Department of Interdisciplinary Pediatrics, Section of Medical Pediatrics, Meyer Children's Hospital, Florence, Italy

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• Chiara Azzari

  Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing

  Affiliations Department of Health Sciences, Section of Pediatrics, University of Florence, Florence, Italy, Pediatric Clinic 2, Pediatric Immunology, Meyer Children’s Hospital, Florence, Italy

  http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7236-1655

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