In 2023, globally\u00a0259,000 people\u00a0died from meningitis and 2.5 million people were infected with the disease, suggests a study\u00a0published in\u00a0The Lancet Neurology.\u00a0Although death and infection rates have declined significantly since 1990, progress is insufficient to meet the WHO\u00a0targets of a 50% reduction in infections and 70% reduction in deaths\u00a0by 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meningitis is the leading infectious cause of neurological disabilities globally. Since 2000, widespread global vaccine rollout\u00a0has\u00a0greatly reduced\u00a0the number of infections and deaths in both high-income and low-income\u00a0countries, however progress\u00a0lags\u00a0behind\u00a0other\u00a0vaccine-preventable\u00a0diseases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This study provides the most comprehensive\u00a0global\u00a0assessment of meningitis to date.\u00a0It suggests\u00a0globally\u00a0259,000 people\u00a0died from meningitis and\u00a02.5 million people\u00a0were infected with the disease\u00a0in 2023, with the greatest risk factors for deaths being low birthweight followed by premature birth\u00a0and air pollution (both household and atmospheric).\u00a0The burden of disease remained disproportionately high in low-income countries, particularly in the African meningitis belt, where Nigeria, Chad, and Niger recorded\u00a0the\u00a0highest death and infection rates.\u00a0Streptococcus pneumoniae, Neisseria meningitidis, non-polio enteroviruses, and other viruses were the leading causes of death, while non-polio enteroviruses caused the most cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authors say\u00a0greater\u00a0efforts, including expanding vaccination\u00a0programmes,\u00a0greater antibiotic stewardship,\u00a0improving access to care, and strengthening diagnostics and monitoring for meningitis, are essential to achieve\u00a0further reductions in the disease globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Journal reference:<\/p>\n
Sirota, S. B., et al. (2026). Global, regional, and national burden of meningitis, its risk factors, and aetiologies, 1990\u20132023: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023. The Lancet Neurology.\u00a0 DOI:\u00a010.1016\/S1474-4422(26)00101-8.\u00a0https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/laneur\/article\/PIIS1474-4422(26)00101-8\/abstract<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2023, globally\u00a0259,000 people\u00a0died from meningitis and 2.5 million people were infected with the disease, suggests a study\u00a0published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137,61157,9798,49650,337,4886],"class_list":["post-569266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-meningitis","tag-neurology","tag-polio","tag-research","tag-vaccine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}