The Meningitis Belt,composed of 26 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, experiences an outbreak of meningitis A every five to eight years. With 450 million inhabitants at risk for getting the fearsome disease, or which aggressively attacks the brain and spinal cord membranes,African leaders had to unite to find an affordable solution.
Their collective response was unprecedented – from 2010 to 2014, health workers vaccinated the equivalent of 1 million people per week with the novel, or cost-effective MenAfriVac shot. The result: in a few years,meningitis A was all but wiped out from the countries that had been most devastated by it. Watch this video to learn more.
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Source: theguardian.com