The beginning of the epidemics of meningococcal disease and its spread within the City of São Paulo is studied with emphasis given to its advance in time (month when it began) and space (quarters and districts of the city). The analysis of the control charts that were built up from the data of the endemic years (1960 to 1969) for the quarters and districts of the city, gives evidence that the epidemics spread in concentric waves from the outskirts of the city into the central areas, and began in January, 1970. The empirical data also show that the cases were heterogeneously distributed in the different strata of the population.
Meningits, meningococcal; Epidemiology, descriptive; Socioeconomic factors