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Meningitis was described for the first time in 1768 by the British Robert Whytt. Today, the Inserm team led by Guillaume Duménil tries to understand how the bacteria accesses the brain. An episode of the series "Killer diseases".

Cholera appeared in India in antiquity. The cholera vibrio, responsible for the disease, still causes 100,000 deaths per year. Around 80% of patients recover, but hope lies in a new diagnostic test that can be used easily, and a vaccine administrable in a single dose...

The well-known symptom of hepatitis (inflammation of the liver) is jaundice. Hepatitis is still responsible for one and a half million deaths a year in the world, 500,000 of them due to hepatitis C. A new treatment, sofosbuvir, is used nowadays in the rich countries.

Antimicrobial resistance is a major public health problem. As global antibiotic consumption continues to grow, the supply of new antibiotics is stagnating. In 2014, for the first time, WHO published an alarming report about that subject. An episode of the series "Killer diseases".

Between 7 and 8 million people worldwide are infected with the Chagas parasite that kills more than 12,000 people a year. The vast majority of patients are Latin Americans. An episode of the series "Killer diseases".

Pneumonia is the most lethal of acute respiratory infections. In 1970, a first vaccine was developed. Nevertheless, vaccination is struggling to reach poor countries. In 2013, pneumonia killed 2 million children under 5 years old.

In 1824, a mysterious disease was observed in Bengal: leishmaniasis, a deadly disease that spread quickly to Asia, Africa and Brazil. Disease otherwise called black sore, because of a frequent symptom: blackening of the skin. An episode of the series "Serial killers". 

With 10% of the world's population, malnutrition remains one of the great scourges of humanity, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, with children being the most vulnerable. An episode of the series "Killer diseases". 

In the last ten years, malaria mortality has halved around the world thanks to prevention and new drugs, including artemisinin.

Although vaccination coverage has increased all over the world, vigilance agains measles should not be weakened, since there are still 147,000 deaths per year worldwide. In France, there's been a resurgence of the disease since the late 1980s. An episode of the series "Killer diseases".

From 1980 to the present, 25 million people have died of AIDS on the planet. In 2013, more than 35 million people live with HIV, including 25 million in Africa. Today AIDS has become a chronic disease accompanied by antiretrovirals. But still no vaccine...

Sleeping sickness has always been present in Africa. The cause of the disease is a parasite, the trepanosome, and the vector is the fly Tsé tse. In areas where this disease is almost extinct, the vigilance of health services must remain high...