{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,21]],"date-time":"2026-09-21T18:31:42Z","timestamp":1790015502448,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,13]],"date-time":"2021-02-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1613174400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Microorganisms"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed a global roadmap to defeat meningitis by 2030. To advocate for and track progress of the roadmap, the burden of meningitis as a syndrome and by pathogen must be accurately defined. Three major global health models estimating meningitis mortality as a syndrome and\/or by causative pathogen were identified and compared for the baseline year 2015. Two models, (1) the WHO and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health\u2019s Maternal and Child Epidemiology Estimation (MCEE) group\u2019s Child Mortality Estimation (WHO-MCEE) and (2) the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD 2017), identified meningitis, encephalitis and neonatal sepsis, collectively, to be the second and third largest infectious killers of children under five years, respectively. Global meningitis\/encephalitis and neonatal sepsis mortality estimates differed more substantially between models than mortality estimates for selected infectious causes of death and all causes of death combined. Estimates at national level and by pathogen also differed markedly between models. Aligning modelled estimates with additional data sources, such as national or sentinel surveillance, could more accurately define the global burden of meningitis and help track progress against the WHO roadmap.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/microorganisms9020377","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,14]],"date-time":"2021-02-14T02:08:12Z","timestamp":1613268492000},"page":"377","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":56,"title":["The Global Burden of Meningitis in Children: Challenges with Interpreting Global Health Estimates"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4763-2331","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Claire","family":"Wright","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Meningitis Research Foundation, Bristol BS1 5HX, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Natacha","family":"Blake","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Meningitis Research Foundation, Bristol BS1 5HX, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Linda","family":"Glennie","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Meningitis Research Foundation, Bristol BS1 5HX, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Vinny","family":"Smith","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Meningitis Research Foundation, Bristol BS1 5HX, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rose","family":"Bender","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hmwe","family":"Kyu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Han Yong","family":"Wunrow","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98105, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Li","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health and Institute for International Programmes, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Diana","family":"Yeung","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute for International Programmes, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9041-2671","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Maria Deloria","family":"Knoll","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"International Vaccine Access Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Brian","family":"Wahl","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"International Vaccine Access Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 21231, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"James M.","family":"Stuart","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1QU, UK"},{"name":"World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Caroline","family":"Trotter","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Disease Dynamics Unit, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0ES, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,2,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) (2020, December 01). 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