Meningitis Deaths in Africa

Worrisome is the outbreak along the "meningitis belt" running from East to West Africa.

GENEVA - Meningitis has infected nearly 16,000 people and killed 1,670 in sub-Saharan Africa in the last two months, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.

The United Nations agency said it was working with Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to contain the outbreak with vaccinations in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda.

Update your itineraries accordingly and, after returning, don't cough on anyone.

For comparison, consider the public and professional attention customarily directed to even a few cases of meningitis in the U.S. Just imagining over 1,600 Americans dying from the disease is inconceivable.