Twelve-year-old Diarra lies unconscious in a hospital bed suffering from classic meningitis symptoms: fever, stiffness, vomiting, in Senegal's capital Dakar, December 12, 2006. With treatment, doctors hoped to be able to save her life although she may be permanently disabled: deafness, epilepsy or paralysis are among the effects of the disease. Her story is common across the arid Sahel region south of the Sahara where every year, from December through May, thousands of people, many of them children, get meningitis. Up to one in 10 who contract the disease die. To match feature AFRICA-MENINGITIS
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