Meningitis continues decline

Burkina Faso's meningitis epidemic is continuing its downward trend, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Friday. As at 15 May, some 12,587 cases, including 1,447 deaths had been reported. The trend, WHO said, showed a continuation of that recorded during the week of 22 April - 28 April, when the number of cases reported were 652 and 67 deaths with a weekly case-fatality rate of 10.5%. Only the district of Paul VI remained above the epidemic threshold, WHO said. The emergence of the meningococcal W135 type in Burkina Faso had major implications for public health in Africa and a research agenda had been agreed with the Crisis Committee, Le Comite National de Pilotage pour la Meningite, the UN Health agency added. The research is being implemented by a team consisting the Epicentre, WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Meningococci, Oslo, Norway, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, Atlanta, United States ) and l'Association pour la Médecine préventive (AMP). Meningitis in Burkina Faso was first reported in January in the eastern district of Diapaga. Since then, the Ministry of Health had reported cases in all of the country's 53 districts, WHO said.