New vaccines and drug treatments that are urgently needed for bacterial meningitis, a devastating disease which kills or maims around a fifth of people who contract it, are not keeping pace with the rise of resistance, Lancet has said.
Meningitis occurs when the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord become inflamed, and can be caused by a number of different agents, most commonly viruses.
Bacterial meningitis was estimated to have killed 180 000 children under five years old in 2010.
Researchers predict that widespread deployment of currently available vaccines in optimum schedules can be predicted to have a major effect on the burden of bacterial meningitis in future years. However, according to the authors, “Important challenges remain. These include delivery of potent vaccines to difficult-to-access populations at risk”
Experts say that the goal for the future is to develop and test vaccines that are able to provide protection against the greatest range of bacterial types.
In a comment, Professor Diederik van de Beek, of the University of Amste-rdam in the Netherlands, highlighted that although bacterial meningitis causes high rates of death and disability, the burden of disease is especially high in lower-income countries, with the fatality rate as high as 50% in some resource-poor countries.
The global emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria is further cause for concern, experts say — citing that many inexpensive and widely available antibiotics are starting to show reduced effectiveness as resistant strains become more prevalent.