Dipstick Test For Meningitis Culprits

... Over a million people each year, most of them in the "meningitis belt" in Africa, contract bacterial meningitis, a potentially deadly infection of tissues that line the brain and spinal cord. The disease can be caused by several kinds of bacteria, and identifying the culprit early during an outbreak is critical to its containment. Suzanne Chanteau and colleagues in Niger have now developed a new series of simple and accurate tests that can determine the cause of an outbreak locally. ...