Meningitis kills a quarter million people a year, study

More than a quarter of a million people worldwide die from meningitis a year, a large new study has estimated, following a recent outbreak of the disease in the UK.

Children accounted for a third of the deaths, many of which were in Africa, according to the research that described itself as the most comprehensive global assessment of meningitis yet.

The study, published in the journal Lancet Neurology, comes after meningitis made headlines when two people died during an outbreak believed to have spread at a nightclub in southeast England earlier this month.

Meningitis is an inflammation of tissues around the brain and spinal cord caused by infection with a range of different viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites.

Bacterial infections are both rarer and more deadly than viral ones.

It was a bacterial infection outbreak in the English county of Kent that prompted more than 10,000 people to get vaccinated in the area over the last two weeks.

Since 2000, the widespread availability of vaccines has brought down the number of meningitis cases and deaths across the world.

Targets in danger of being missed

However, 259,000 people were estimated to have died worldwide in 2023, according to the new research by the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).

The "African meningitis belt", which stretches across the continent from Senegal to Ethiopia, had the highest rate of cases.

Nigeria, Chad and Niger were particularly hard hit.

Low birthweight, premature birth and air pollution were the biggest risk factors, the study found.

It also warned the World Health Organization (WHO) was unlikely to reach its 2030 target for meningitis.

The WHO has a goal of slashing the global number of bacterial meningitis cases by 50 percent - and deaths by 70 percent - from 2015 levels by the end of this decade.

However annual deaths and cases were only falling by half the rate needed to meet this target, the study found.

"Accelerated efforts - including expanding immunisation, improving access to care, and strengthening diagnostics and surveillance - are essential to achieve these targets," it said.

Many deaths from meningitis go unreported, particularly in developing countries, meaning that some figures could be underestimated, the researchers cautioned.

The study was based on figures from the Global Burden of Disease study from the IHME, which brings together thousands of researchers across the world and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.