It may be that climate change contributes significantly the spread of the disease in Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Côte dIvoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Togo. This is an area of Africa where the disease is endemic: meningitis is "silently" present, and there are always a few cases. When the number of cases passes five per population of 100,000 in one week, teams are on alert. Epidemic levels are reached when there have been 100 cases per 100,000 populations over several weeks.Further complicating efforts to halt the spread of meningitis in Africa is the fact that extremely dry, dusty weather conditions which characterize Niger and Burkina Faso from December to June favor the development of epidemics. Overcrowded villages are breeding grounds for bacterial transmission and lead to a high prevalence of respiratory tract infections, which leave the body more susceptible to infection, encouraging the spread of meningitis. IRIN Africa news has been providing the number of deaths for each country since 1995, and a mass vaccination campaign following a community outbreak of meningococcal disease in Florida was done by the CDC. Florida
As of June 2022, there is an ongoing outbreak of the disease in Florida. The CDC has identified 26 cases of the disease. Seven deaths have been attributed to the disease. History and etymology
From the Greek meninx (membrane) + kokkos (berry), meningococcal disease was first described by Gaspard Vieusseux during an outbreak in Geneva in 1805.
In 1884, Italian pathologists Ettore Marchiafava and Angelo Celli described intracellular micrococci in cerebrospinal fluid, and in 1887, Anton Wiechselbaum identified the meningococcus (designated as Diplococcus intracellularis meningitidis) in cerebrospinal fluid and established the connection between the organism and epidemic meningitis. See also
Endocarditis
Pathogenic bacteria
Waterhouse–Friderichsen syndrome
African meningitis belt
2009–10 West African meningitis outbreak
Meningococcal vaccine
Meningitis Vaccine Project

References
Further reading
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012). "Ch. 13: Meningococcal Disease". In Atkinson W, Wolfe S, Hamborsky J (eds.). Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (12th ed.). Washington DC: Public Health Foundation. pp. 193–204. Archived from the original on 10 March 2017. External links

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