SYLVANA COTE: "We argue in the paper that missing school when you're starting to learn to read or when you learn to write may be more problematic for the future academic trajectory than missing day care days."

The research appears in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association.

Chantal Compaore, the wife of Burkina Faso's president, holds a young boy during the launch of a new vaccination campaign against meningitis December 6

Some diseases can be prevented by vaccines. This month, the World Health Organization launched the first vaccine ever developed for Africa.

The vaccine is designed to provide ten years of low-cost protection against meningococcal A. This bacterial form of meningitis can cause brain damage and death. Major epidemics strike Africa every seven to fourteen years. Children and young adults are the hardest hit.

Last year, an outbreak across sub-Saharan Africa killed more than five thousand people. The WHO says as many as four hundred fifty million people across Africa are at risk from meningitis.

The new vaccine is called MenAfriVac. It can be given to children as young as one, which is earlier than vaccines currently used to fight meningitis epidemics n Africa.

Health workers launched the new vaccine in Burkina Faso in West Africa. There are twenty-five countries along Africa's so-called meningitis belt from Senegal to Ethiopia. The hope is that people in all twenty-five countries will be protected against the disease by twenty-fifteen.