We've shown meningitis can be eliminated. Let's do it. It is a deadly disease linked to high temperatures, airborne dust and overcrowded living conditions – some of the very conditions that climate change threatens to exacerbate .
It caused an estimated 250,000 deaths in 2019, ranks among the top killers of young children and can leave survivors with brain damage and hearing loss. This disease is bacterial meningococcal meningitis, and it can appear anywhere at any time. But it disproportionately affects the Meningitis Belt, which stretches across 26 countries in Africa and is home to hundreds of millions of people.
Each year, this region experiences the hot and dusty conditions that can enable meningitis to spread, and every 5-12 years, has devastating epidemics causing massive disease. The good news? Meningitis can be defeated. In fact, the world managed to effectively eliminate the most common cause in the Meningitis Belt: meningitis A, where not a single case of that strain has been reported since 2017 .
As we mark World Meningitis Day on October 5, we should work to build on this remarkable success by following a World Health Organization (WHO) road map that lays out what needs to be done to eliminate meningitis as a public health threat by 2030. But achieving this requires us to act together and decide to dedicate resources to preventing new cases and outbreaks, including by deploying the most state-of-the-art vaccines, investing in diagnosis, treatment and surveillan.
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