Meningitis death toll now 672

A meningitis epidemic in Burkina Faso has now caused 672 deaths from 4,758 cases recorded since January, the Ministry of Health reported on Friday. It said that 15 of the country's 53 health districts had reached the epidemic threshold of 10 cases for every 100,000 inhabitants. "Despite measures taken to prevent a wide spread of meningitis in 2002, the epidemic is well entrenched in certain districts," the ministry reported in a statement. Health officials attribute the spread of the disease to the recent appearance in Burkina Faso, for the first time, of the Saudi Arabia meningitis germ - the W135. Burkinabe authorities said Muslims returning form their pilgrimage to Mecca in 2000 most likely brought in the germ. The vaccine against this strain is unavailable in Burkina Faso, which till now only knew the A and C forms. Burkina Faso officials are offering free vaccinations and health care for people in the 13 worst hit health districts, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said it would provide the government with 1.9 million doses of vaccine. Researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and WHO are in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger investigating the Saudi meningitis form. Meningitis is a viral or bacterial infection of the fluid in a person's spinal cord and around the brain. In Africa, the disease often surfaces during annual dry seasons when strong desert winds blow south, raining in dust over the area. The secretary-general of the Burkina Faso Ministry of Health, Jean Wango, said in Ouagadougou, the capital, that the dust and heat wave presented favourable conditions for the disease, which each year struck thousands of people from Senegal, in the west of the continent, to Ethiopia in the east. In January, health officials launched a US $1.66 million "mass prevention campaign'' against meningitis aimed at immunising three million people aged from two years to 30 years. In 2001, meningitis killed 1,854 of the 13,293 cases registered in Burkina Faso; but the worst recent occurrence was in 1996 when 4,000 died.