Heat, Dust and Death: How Climate Change is Fueling Meningitis in Northern Ghana
Amidst the scorching sun in Charikpong, a village in the northwestern Upper West Region, 7,500 kilometres from the capital Accra, Maani Naa leans against a mud house.
His eyes still well up as he recalls the day his 25-year-old son, Kwame, died.
“He said he had a headache. We delayed for a while, but when he kept complaining, I took him to the community clinic on my motorcycle,” he recounts. “They referred us to Nadowli Hospital. By the time we got there, he couldn’t speak. His condition deteriorated, he was put on oxygen, and within three days, he was gone.”
Kwame died of meningitis, a disease that continues to haunt communities across northern Ghana, where seasonal outbreaks have become a grim and familiar reality.
Health officials say the illness resurfaces almost every year during the dry and dusty harmattan season, when heat, dehydration, and overcrowded living conditions heighten transmission risks.
“Meningitis has virtually become endemic and has been with us over the years,” Dr Phoebe Balagumyetime, a district health director in the Upper West Region, says. “Every year, especially during the dry and dusty season, we prepare for it because we know it will resurface.”
Meningitis is a life-threatening condition in which the protective membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord become inflamed, usually due to bacterial or viral infection.
Globally, the disease kills more than 300,000 people annually. Even with treatment, about 10 per cent of patients die, while up to 20 per cent of survivors live with permanent complications, including hearing loss, epilepsy, and cognitive impairment.
In Ghana, meningitis has repeatedly struck hardest in the northern regions, which lie within Africa’s so-called meningitis belt. The country’s worst outbreak occurred in 1996/1997, when Serotype A meningitis infected 18,703 people and claimed 1,356 lives, largely in the Northern, Upper East, and Upper West regions.
The Heat Factor
All five of Ghana’s northern regions, including Upper West, fall within the “African Meningitis Belt”—a stretch of 25 countries in sub-Saharan Africa that runs from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east and is home to about 450 million people.
Countries within this belt are particularly prone to meningitis outbreaks because of geographical and climatic conditions. One key factor is the Harmattan, a dry and dusty wind that blows across the region between December and March. During this period, temperatures rise sharply and humidity drops.
Increasingly, extreme heat and shifting weather patterns—linked to climate change—are creating conditions that favour the spread of the disease. High temperatures, low humidity, and dust-filled winds make people more vulnerable to infection.
Prolonged heat dries and irritates the mucous membranes of the nose and throat, weakening the body’s natural defences and making it easier for bacteria such as Neisseria meningitidis to enter the bloodstream. Dust particles carried by strong winds further damage these protective linings, increasing susceptibility.
Map of the meningitis belt in Africa
Dr Michael Amoah Gyansah, Upper West Regional Chairman of the Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists, explains that heat stress can also weaken the immune system, reducing the body’s ability to fight infections. This, he says, contributes to the different bacterial strains responsible for the disease.
According to laboratory data from the Upper West and other northern regions, the most common confirmed cause of meningitis is Streptococcus pneumoniae, accounting for about 90% of recorded cases. This is followed by Neisseria meningitidis (9%) and Haemophilus influenzae (1%). Incidence varies by season and climate, with outbreaks typically occurring during the dry months from October to March.
‘’The current heatwave facilitates the spread of CSM and can affect laboratory testing and diagnosis of meningitis by degrading samples and reagents, leading to inaccurate results.’’ Dr Michael explains.
‘’To mitigate this, laboratories implement measures such as using air-conditioned facilities, storing reagents and transporting samples under specific temperatures, and prioritising CSF analysis as an urgent test at the laboratory,’’ he adds.
Extreme heat also drives behavioural risks. Many people sleep outdoors or in poorly ventilated rooms to escape indoor temperatures, leading to overcrowding and close contact. These conditions make it easier for meningitis to spread through respiratory droplets. Dehydration, another consequence of prolonged heat, can weaken overall health and delay care-seeking, allowing infections to worsen before treatment is sought.
“Poor ventilation and overcrowding increase the danger,” clarifies Dr Balagumyetime. “Better housing design, bigger windows, and improved airflow can make a difference.”
Uneven Distribution
In the case of the late 25-year-old Kwame, the gaps in the system proved fatal. When he began showing symptoms of meningitis, the first two hospitals he visited lacked the laboratory capacity to test for the disease. The Upper West Regional Hospital remains the only facility in the region able to confirm suspected cases. The 11 district and municipal hospital laboratories can conduct only basic tests, often leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment. By the time his samples were processed, Kwame had already succumbed to the illness.
A view of the community clinic in Charikpong, a village in the northwestern Upper West Region.
“There is a need for urgent retooling of all district and municipal hospital laboratories with PCR machines, culture and sensitivity testing equipment, and training of staff,” Dr Michael explains.
Health professionals attribute part of the problem to the uneven distribution of medical personnel in northern Ghana, which has constrained the capacity of hospitals.
The Ghana Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists (GAMLS) says about 2,000 qualified and licensed laboratory practitioners remain unemployed, a situation it argues is hampering efforts to strengthen disease diagnosis.
“We appeal to the government of Ghana to grant financial clearance to the thousands of qualified but unemployed medical laboratory professionals who have completed school and been at home from 2019 to 2025. Their services are urgently needed now,” Dr Michael says.
Despite these challenges, government officials point to improvements in surveillance and emergency response systems. Yet health experts warn that late reporting remains one of the deadliest factors. Public education through radio discussions, community information centres and outreach campaigns has encouraged residents to seek care early, though gaps persist.
There are also widespread misconceptions about vaccination. “Not all types of meningitis are vaccine-preventable,” explains Balagumyetime. “We must first identify the strain before vaccination is considered. We don’t vaccinate blindly.”
For families such as Maani Naa’s, these lessons have come too late. But health officials insist that with early reporting, coordinated response, and sustained public awareness, deaths like Kwame’s can be prevented.
As climate change drives rising temperatures and longer dry seasons across the African meningitis belt, outbreaks are likely to become more frequent and intense—underscoring the urgency of climate-informed public health planning and early warning systems.
This story was funded by the Wits Centre for Journalism under its Health Reporting Fellowship 2025.
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