Yorkhill Hospital will carry out the study into meningitis

The Meningitis Association (Scotland) has donated �10,000 to Glasgow's Yorkhill Hospital to fund the research.

The money will fund a part-time assistant psychologist, who look into evidence of longer-term problems that may be attributable to the disease.

These may include behavioural problems and the disruption of normal learning capabilities in young children.

The research will follow up a number of children who have come through the hospital with the virus.

Psychological edge

Dr Liam Dorris, paediatric neuropsychologist at Yorkhill, is delighted with the funding and said: "We will be looking at a wide range of evidence including results of neuropsychological tests and educational progress, as well as the accounts of the children themselves.

"However, this study will involve looking at the effects of meningitis from a psychologist's point of view, allowing us to dig deeper into the longer-term neuropsychological implications the disease could have for children as they grow up.

"At the end of the project we would hope to be more able to identify those children who may be at high risk of developing long-term complications as a result of contracting meningitis."

The founder of the Meningitis Association (Scotland), Eileen McKiernan, added: "The desperate need for this study has in one way been fulfilled thanks to the foresight of the management of Yorkhill hospital who are always at the forefront of medical breakthroughs.

"We trust that this is just the beginning of the treatment of many children whose lives have been, and continue to be, ruined because the long-term side-effects of meningitis have not been recognised and are treated too late as unrelated anomalies."