Health Ministry appeals for more meningitis vaccine

Burundi's Ministry of Health has appealed for more meningitis vaccine because of an increase in cases of the disease in Gitega Province in central Burundi and Karuzi in the northeast. Everyone in both provinces and those in Ruyigi and Cankuzo in the east could be vaccinated if donors responded positively to the request, a World Health Organisation (WHO) consultant, Dr Dineke Venekamp, told IRIN. Forty-seven cases of meningitis were registered in Gitega, and 25 in Karuzi as at September 22. WHO reported on Friday that it had already shipped 650,000 doses of vaccine, paid for by the UN agency and the EC's Humanitarian Aid Office, ECHO. The vaccines were being distributed to the worst affected provinces of Muyinga in the northeast, Ruyigi and Cankuzo, WHO reported. WHO said that as at 9 September, the government had reported 688 cases of the disease, including 56 deaths. "This is the worst epidemic of meningitis in the country for 10 years, and coincides with outbreaks in Rwanda and Tanzania," WHO reported. Venekamp said although cases of the disease were increasing in the central and eastern provinces, they were declining in the northern ones of Muyinga, Kirundo and Ngozi. The entire population of Muyinga has been vaccinated and similar efforts are being made in the foothills of Kirundo and Ngozi. WHO reported that the first suspected cases of meningitis in Burundi this year were reported in early July in Ngozi. Confirmed cases were reported early June in southern Rwanda, and at the end of August among refugees in Tanzania. Burundian refugees in Tanzania had been returning home daily, WHO reported. In Burundi, it added, 80 percent of those infected were under 25 years of age and "more than" 50 percent under 15 years old. "Without early recognition and treatment, meningitis can kill up to half of those infected. In this outbreak, approximately 8 percent of the people infected have died," it reported.