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SUMMARY:A pain in the neck\; meningococcal meningitis in Africa - Professo
 r Sir Brian Greenwood (an alumnus of King's College\, Cambridge\; winner o
 f the prestigious Canada Gairdiner Global Health Award in 2012)\; Faculty 
 of Infectious &amp\; Tropical Diseases\, LSHTM
DTSTART:20131022T170000Z
DTEND:20131022T180000Z
UID:TALK47761@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Pauline Essah
DESCRIPTION:For over 100 years\, large epidemics of meningococcal meningit
 is\, involving many thousands of subjects\, have occurred in an area of th
 e African Sahel and sub-Sahel known as the African meningitis belt\, which
  stretches across Africa from Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west.
  Theories as to how the bacterium which causes these epidemics (Neisseria 
 meningitidis - the meningococcus) reached sub-Saharan Africa will be discu
 ssed as will possible reasons for why meningococcal infection occurs in th
 is part of Africa in a manner seen nowhere else in the world. The features
  of the disease and its treatment will be mentioned briefly. Attempts to p
 revent this infection by vaccination have been made since shortly after th
 e infection was described first in Africa but\, until recently\, these eff
 orts have met with only limited success. With support from the Bill and Me
 linda Gates Foundation\, a new serogroup A polysaccharide protein conjugat
 e vaccine (MenAfriVac) has been developed through a public private partner
 ship (the Meningitis Vaccine Project) and produced at the Serum Institute 
 of India at an affordable price. This vaccine is now being rolled out acro
 ss the meningitis\, and recent experience in Chad which has shown that it 
 has been dramatically effective in averting an epidemic will be described.
  
LOCATION:Beves Room\, King's College\, Cambridge\, CB2 1ST
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