Eyes in Sky Monitor Weather, Predict Epidemics

Every year, dust storms blow across Africa’s Sahel region. And every year, meningitis blows in after them. This month, Niger closed schools in the capital, Niamey, as health officials tried to control an outbreak that has so far sickened more than 2,000 people and claimed the lives of more than 168 in Niger, Ghana and Nigeria. Scientists don’t know exactly why the disease tends to come on the heels of the region’s seasonal dust storms. But they do have the tools to track them....

© La Voix de l'Amérique - mercredi 6 mai 2015