Meningitis kills nearly 700

2006-04-03 21:03

Niamey - An outbreak of meningitis in Burkina Faso and Niger has killed 668 people since the start of the year and infected 6 912, the United Nations said in a report published on Monday.

In Burkina Faso, which has been hardest hit, 6 110 cases and 616 deaths had been recorded between the start of the year and March 18, a death rate per infection of 10.8%, said the report, published by the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA).

The report said the authorities, with the help of the World Health Organisation, had organised vaccination programmes and awareness campaigns in the infected areas and provided medicines.

Two weeks ago the Burkina Faso health authorities reported that at least 330 people had died in 2 919 cases of the cerebral-spinal illness - whose symptoms include high fever, violent headaches and vomiting - during the three previous months.

They said the epidemic had hit most of the country's 55 administrative districts, but was particularly severe in the southwest of the country.

OCHA also recorded some 802 cases of meningitis in Niger, which borders Burkina Faso, 52 of them fatal, between January and March 10.

It said almost half the cases had been recorded between the end of February and March 10.

In the Maradi region in the south-east of the country, where 83% of the cases were recorded, vaccination campaigns have got underway with the support of the medical aid agency Doctors without Borders and the International Federation for the Red Cross, OCHA said.

Niger and Burkina, two of the world's poorest countries, are situated in the African meningitis belt, which stretches from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east and has a population of about 300 million.

November and December are the worst months for the spread of meningitis, because the seasonal Harmattan winds carry the disease.

Meningitis is an infection of the meninges, the tissue that surrounds the brain and the spinal chord.

- AFP