EA - Shallow Investigation: Bacterial Meningitis by peetyxk

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Shallow Investigation: Bacterial Meningitis, published by peetyxk on March 28, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.This report consolidates a shallow investigation into Bacterial Meningitis - its effects and importance in global health, the current tractability and cost-effectiveness of leading interventions, and an evaluation of the overall promise of the cause. I estimate this report to be a result of about 60-70 hours of research and writing. This research was conducted as part of the Cause Innovation Bootcamp fellowship, with constant guidance from Dr. Akhil Bansal.Summary:Meningitis is an inflammation (swelling) of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. It is commonly associated with infections (e.g. bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis), but it can also have non-infectious causes. The most common symptoms include fever, headache, sensitivity to light, and neck stiffness; in most cases, meningitis is treatable by addressing the underlying cause e.g. treating the causative infection.Bacterial meningitis is important from a global health perspective - it ranks 40th on the current list of diseases in terms of total DALYs lost.4 strands of bacteria cause 50% of all meningitis-related deaths, namely meningococcus, pneumococcus, Haemophilus influenzae and group B streptococcus - all of which are vaccine-preventable.GBS (Group B Streptococcus) ranks 6th on the list of causes leading to DALYs lost in the age-group 1-10.Bacterial meningitis is heavily concentrated in the African Meningitis belt, consisting of regions in 26 countries stretching from Senegal in the West to Ethiopia in the East, and incidence is inversely related with socio-demographic index (SDI).Bacterial meningitis does not seem to be neglectedImportant steps seem to have been taken already to counter meningitis on a global scale; including WHO’s comprehensive report on “A Global Plan to Defeat Meningitis by 2030”.While the important interventions seem tractable, they seem to be less neglected than a lot of other interventions in global health, reducing their counterfactual value.Important interventions that could yield (relatively) high cost-effectiveness seem to beInstalling an integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) system for monitoring meningitis, andAdvocating for the acceleration of the GBS vaccine development.Major uncertainties: The interventions are still ‘moderately’ promising; for ex. If someone is uniquely positioned to accelerate GBS vaccine trials/distribution, or complete broad educational initiatives about infant healthcare/precautions preventing neonatal transmission, this might on the margins be a promising thing to do. On another note, the counterfactual neglectedness is low primarily due to WHO’s commitments in its “Roadmap to defeating meningitis by 2030” - if not followed up/held, the counterfactual value of another route to addressing meningitis could increase significantly.I. ImportanceMeningitis is an inflammation (swelling) of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. It is commonly associated with infections e.g. bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis, but it can also have non-infectious causes. The most common symptoms include fever, headache, sensitivity to light and neck stiffness; in most cases, meningitis is treatable by addressing the underlying cause e.g. an infection.Meningitis, depending on the specific pathogen (virus, bacteria, fungi etc.) is often communicable and usually transmitted through close contact. Meningitis can also be passed on by mothers to their infants, and in fact, bacterial meningitis in infants is most commonly caused by the Group B Streptococcus pathogen (GBS), passed down in the peripartum period ( thebirthing process). Since meningitis attacks the membranes of the spinal co...