Table 2.

List of articles included in review

Reference	First author	Year of publication	Country	Region	Total no. of CBM cases
[33]	Abid	1999	Morocco	Africa Northern	141
[34]	Abid	1999	Morocco	Africa Northern	118
[35]	Akpede	1999	Nigeria	Western Meningitis	63
[36]	Bijlmer	1990	Gambia	Western Meningitis	77
[37]	Bissagnene	1996	Cote d'Ivoire	Western Meningitis	654
[38]	Bernard-Bonnin	1985	Cameroon	Middle Meningitis	174
[39,40]	Camara	2003	Senegal	Western Meningitis	511
[14]	Friedland	1992	South Africa	Africa Southern	79
[16]	Girgis	1991	Egypt	Africa Northern	160
[41]	Girgis	1989	Egypt	Africa Northern	429
[17]	Girgis	1998	Egypt	Africa Northern	697
[22]	Goetghebuer	2000	The Gambia	Western Meningitis	257
[42]	Grobler	1997	South Africa	Africa Southern	61
[43]	Hailu	2001	Ethiopia	Eastern Meningitis	32
[44]	Koko	2000	Gabon	Africa Middle	91
[45]	Kristos	1993	Ethiopia	Eastern Meningitis	124
[46]	Lagunju		Nigeria	Western Meningitis	29
[47]	Mackie	1992	Ghana	Western Meningitis	69
[48]	Mbonda	1995	Cameroon	Middle Meningitis	67
[49]	Melaku	2003	Ethiopia	Eastern Meningitis	53
[50]	Mhirsi	1992	Tunisia	Africa Northern	98
[51]	Molyneux	1998	Malawi	Africa Eastern	149
[52]	Molyneux	2000	Malawi	Africa Eastern	52
[53]	Moreau	1986	Cote d'Ivoire	Western Meningitis	47
[54]	Mwangi	2002	Kenya	Eastern Meningitis	224
[55]	Ogunlesi	2005	Nigeria	Western Meningitis	124
[56]	Pelkonen	2008	Angola	Africa Middle	403
[57,58]	Razafindralambo	2004	Madagascar	Africa Eastern	83
[59]	Redjah	1998	Algeria	Africa Northern	57
[60,61]	Salih	1990	Sudan	Eastern Meningitis	43
[62]	Salih	1990	Sudan	Eastern Meningitis	108
[63]	Sangare	2005	Burkina Faso	Western Meningitis	53
[64]	Mefo	1999	Cameroon	Middle Meningitis	99
[65]	Soltani	2005	Tunisia	Africa Northern	20
[66]	Tall	1992	Burkina Faso	Western Meningitis	285
[15]	Thabet	2007	Tunisia	Africa Northern	73
[67]	WHO	1993	Mali and Niger	Western Meningitis	426

The 37 articles included in this review are listed in the above table. Articles with overlapping data have two references listed in the 'reference' column but were extracted as one article in the review database.

CBM = confirmed bacterial meningitis; WHO = World Health Organization.