Meningitis 'epidemic' looms

2004-05-17 12:47

Ouagadougou - An outbreak of meningitis in Burkina Faso has killed about 800 of 4 550 people infected with the disease since January, the health ministry said Monday.

In a statement, the ministry warned that the western districts of Diebougou and Nanoro were facing a crisis of epidemic proportions from the cerebral-spinal illness whose symptoms include high fever, violent headaches and vomiting.

A campaign to thwart further spread of the disease opened on March 5, with the health ministry coordinating the free dispatch of badly-needed vaccines to the affected areas.

At that point, some 400 people had died from two thousand cases of the disease that is endemic to Burkina Faso.

More than 1 500 people died of meningitis in the land-locked west African state in 2003.

The World Health Organization in September last year launched a fundraising appeal seeking €8.5m (about R66m) to pay for an estimated six million doses of the vaccine for Africa.

Under a deal with the WHO, British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline developed a cheap meningitis vaccine for African countries, which costs one euro per dose - a fraction of its usual four-dollar price-tag, GSK president and general manager Jean Stephenne said in September.

- AFP