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New meningitis strains could thrive following vaccine success
Outbreaks of meningitis A have all but vanished from sub-Saharan Africa, but health officials worry that the bacteria could return.
Ewen Callaway
10 November 2015
.
A deadly bacterial infection once common in Africa, meningitis A has been virtually wiped out thanks to a massive vaccination effort. But researchers and health officials warn that other deadly strains of meningococcal bacteria may emerge in its place, as has happened with vaccines against other types of bacteria. And meningitis A could still return if African countries fail to routinely vaccinate against it because of competing health priorities.
The successful elimination of meningitis A, which is documented in a series of articles published on 10 November in Clinical Infectious Diseases1, might already be allowing other deadly varieties, to become more dominant, adds Brian Greenwood, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
...
http://www.nature.com/news/new-meningitis-strains-could-thrive-following-vaccine-success-1.18757
Outbreaks of meningitis A have all but vanished from sub-Saharan Africa, but health officials worry that the bacteria could return.
Ewen Callaway
10 November 2015
.
A deadly bacterial infection once common in Africa, meningitis A has been virtually wiped out thanks to a massive vaccination effort. But researchers and health officials warn that other deadly strains of meningococcal bacteria may emerge in its place, as has happened with vaccines against other types of bacteria. And meningitis A could still return if African countries fail to routinely vaccinate against it because of competing health priorities.
The successful elimination of meningitis A, which is documented in a series of articles published on 10 November in Clinical Infectious Diseases1, might already be allowing other deadly varieties, to become more dominant, adds Brian Greenwood, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
...
http://www.nature.com/news/new-meningitis-strains-could-thrive-following-vaccine-success-1.18757