The Perfect Post

This post is about the factors which lead to Meningitis epidemics in the Meningitis belt. This answers my own question in a previous post.

My first source is a website from Brown University, which is well known and respected. The Url is: http://www.brown.edu/Courses/Bio_160/Projects2005/meningitis/epidemiology.htm This sight has an entire section dedicated to meningitis a lot of useful and easy to understand material.

According to the above cite, one of the factors that leads to meningitis in the Meningitis Belt is the climate. Epidemics occur most often in the dry season, which is exceptionally dry and during this season there are frequent dust storms. This damages people's "mucosal barriers." As I understand it, Mucosal barriers are an important part of the immune system which help prevent infections that spread similarly to meningitis. If a person's mucosal barriers are damaged, they are at higher risk for contracting meningitis.

http://jcm.asm.org/cgi/content/full/43/10/5129#R16







This site from the Journal of Clinical Microbiology confirms the above information. It also says that the Meningitis Belt is more likely to have epidemics because people are exposed to new strains of the disease there. I don't really understand why that is.

I think that the climate being a major factor is interesting, especially if we look at it with our essential question. Is is possible that the epidemics are not related to economics? I'd like to know more about the lifestyle in sub-saharan Africa.

The above image complements my post. It is from the reliable United Nations website (http://www.un.org/issues/gallery/Africa/index2.htm). It depicts African children playing as a dust storm starts.