A MÁLAGA woman has just scaled nearly 6,000 metres to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for meningitis research – and handed over a healthy sum to help scientists in their mission to wipe out the condition by the year 2030.
Laura Roantree grew up in the Fuengirola area, and her parents are close friends with Judy Borland, who manages Specsavers opticians' in the Costa del Sol town – a firm which sponsored her €500 for her arduous trek.
Despite not having had personal experience of meningitis among her closest circle, Laura's eyes were opened wide when she began researching an illness that strikes over 2.5 million people in the world every year.
And the mere fact that she had known very little about the condition told her that raising awareness, as well as research funds, was absolutely crucial.
“It was only when I joined the [Kilimanjaro] challenge that I was told about the effects meningitis has on families, and how serious it can be,” explains Laura.
During her social media campaign to raise cash for the cause, one of Laura's college classmates got in touch.
“She told me how she had dealt with septicaemia – caused by the same bacteria as meningitis – in our first year of our degree,” Laura reveals, “and how glad she was that we were raising awareness.”
Laura's old university mate told her that her own experience 'showed how little people knew of the condition', compounding Laura's new-found knowledge of 'how important the work the Meningitis Research Foundation are doing really is'.
“They hope to see Meningitis defeated by 2030,” Laura recalls.
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