More than a quarter of a million people worldwide die from meningitis a year, a large new study has estimated, following a recent outbreak of the disease in the UK.
Children accounted for a third of the deaths, many of which were in Africa, according to the research that described itself as the most comprehensive global assessment of meningitis yet.
The study, published in the journal Lancet Neurology, comes after meningitis made headlines when two people died during an outbreak believed to have spread at a nightclub in southeast England earlier this month.
Meningitis is an inflammation of tissues around the brain and spinal cord caused by infection with a range of different viruses, bacteria, fungi or parasites.
Bacterial infections are both rarer and more deadly than viral ones.
It was a…