2024 has been an incredible year in the world of meningitis advocacy and we’ve seen some powerful moments which have amplified our shared goal to defeat meningitis by 2030.
Race to 2030 is Meningitis Research Foundation’s programme to support you to engage with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Road Map to Defeat Meningitis by 2030. Our key priority is to ensure that the voices of people with experience of meningitis, and the organisations that support them, are central to defeating this preventable disease.
In this blog, we’ll explore some of our Race to 2030 highlights from 2024, including how CoMO members have been pivotal in our work this year, and look ahead to what is to come in 2025.
April: a global moment to call for change
In April 2024, we marked a critical milestone. The World Health Organization (WHO) held its first ever high-level meeting on meningitis to coincide with the publication of their investment case for defeating meningitis.
Meningitis Research Foundation work closely with WHO and other global health bodies in a number of different ways to support the implementation of the Global Road Map. As part of Race to 2030, we worked with WHO ahead of this event to ensure that the stories and experiences of people whose lives have been changed by meningitis were at the heart of the day.
In Paris, we saw CoMO members Alicia Stillman, Executive Director of the Emily Stillman Foundation and the Co-Executive Director of the American Society for Meningitis Prevention (ASMP), and Siobhán Holohan, ACT For Meningitis in Ireland, taking to the stage in front of some of the most powerful decision-makers in global health. They both shared incredibly moving stories about the impact of meningitis on their families, and how they have harnessed their grief to push for change. Our members from around the world also came together to raise their voices in support of this milestone event, including over 50 members signing our joint press release and contributing to a video of compelling stories of their motivation for defeating meningitis.
June: Exploring challenges and opportunities in the Meningitis Belt
June saw the publication of Meningitis Research Foundation’s health communications research, published in partnership with UNICEF. Our report “Meningitis Health Communications: Examining channels, messaging and best practice in the African Meningitis Belt” looks at how communication resources are used to deliver crucial messages about the signs, symptoms and risks of meningitis, as well as the importance of immunisation to protect individuals and communities. CoMO members from across the Meningitis Belt – situated across Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia, the 26 countries which experience the highest burden of the disease in the world – were pivotal in this work, as they participated in and supported our research.
Through this project, we have also developed various tools to support people to communicate effectively about meningitis.
We had the pleasure of presenting this research to all of you at the CoMO annual conference in June. More recently, our African Regional Coordinator, Omorodion Rhoda Omoile, shared it at the World Health Organization’s annual meeting on meningitis in the African Region in October. Our CEO, Vinny Smith, also spoke to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, about how important it is to fund communications to defeat meningitis.
October: Sharing stories for collective action
The 5th October was a moment for us all to come together. Pioneered by CoMO members in 2009 and coordinated by Meningitis Research Foundation, World Meningitis Day is the largest global day of collective action on meningitis. A key part of the Road Map is to have more than 80% of countries engaging in World Meningitis Day.
2024 was the most successful World Meningitis Day to date, with the campaign estimated to have reached around 1.7 billion people, with 135 different countries engaging. This makes up almost 70% of UN Member States and moves us closer to the 80% target. To support this, the Race to 2030 team worked closely with high-profile partners like UNICEF and WHO to increase the visibility of the day.
In addition, we collaborated with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, who ran a “spotlight week” in the run-up to World Meningitis Day. Articles through the course of the week focused on personal experiences, with powerful stories generously shared by CoMO members including Deidre Fredericks from the Meningitis Association of South Africa, Friend of CoMO Sarah Joyce in Australia, Danielle and Shaquille from the PAMAH Foundation in the USA, Suelen Caroline Rosalino and family from Associação Brasileira de Combate à Meningite and Isaac Ampomah from Concern Health Education Project in Ghana.
Throughout 2024: national plans for global change
2024 has seen significant progress towards the goal of having localised, targeted plans for defeating meningitis. According to the Road Map, every country should have a national plan in place for defeating meningitis.
CoMO members have been instrumental in supporting national plan development. For example, as part of Race to 2030, we supported Suelen from Associação Brasileira de Combate à Meningite who spoke at the launch event for Brazil’s national plan to share her family’s story about the impact of meningitis. This was a momentous occasion as the first national plan to be published in the region.
We have also seen fantastic progress across Africa, with eleven countries who have finalised a national plan. While there is still a long way to go to meet this commitment, this year was an enormous leap forward.
In September, we also saw the publication of the WHO’s operational manual for developing meningitis plans. This is a guidance document to support all countries to develop a national plan. It is so exciting to see CoMO directly referenced as an important source of advocacy and engagement advice and to see World Meningitis Day included as a recommended activity for countries to include in their national plans, recognising its power as an awareness-raising platform. Considering the origins of World Meningitis Day as a grassroots campaign driven by CoMO members, it is incredible to see the day being recognised in such a critical document which should inform national meningitis plans across the world.
2025 and beyond:
As 2024 comes to an end, we progress ever closer to the midpoint of the WHO’s Global Roadmap to Defeat Meningitis by 2030.
We are already working closely with many CoMO members behind the scenes on various pieces of advocacy which we’re excited to see come to fruition in 2025, and we are looking forward to seizing more opportunities for impact.
CoMO members have told us in the past that you want more tools, training and information to support your advocacy. Our Race to 2030 Resources Hub has been developed this year, aiming to provide you with clear, usable resources to support you to push for change wherever you are in the world. So far, we’ve published several quick-read pieces on: the WHO’s investment case for defeating meningitis, Gavi and their investment opportunity, and ways to engage with the Road Map. There’s plenty more planned for 2025, so keep an eye on the Resources Hub for more tools to support your work.
We’re also excited to launch our Race to 2030 working group in 2025, providing a platform for CoMO members to come together across regions, learn from each other’s advocacy and get involved in joint campaigns. If you’d like to join, you can sign up for the working group here: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=xvftDGb2EkyM5TQ2jf6-LcID834iY6hNrbBfFCyd1YZURDM0VThFOVY2OVBMQzYyTkpFWEZUS0tTTS4u
We have been honoured to work with incredible advocates from across our CoMO network throughout 2024. As the halfway point in the WHO’s Road Map, 2025 will be a milestone year for meningitis advocacy and we can’t wait to work together as we all continue to push for progress towards defeating meningitis by 2030.
Find out more about Race to 2030, including all of our resources and tools, on our webpage. If there’s anything you would like to see as part of Race to 2030, including support for your national advocacy, information on key global health topics or ideas for engaging with the Road Map, don’t hesitate to contact us at advocacy@meningitis.org.
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