City-wide meningitis vaccination campaign under way

A city-wide vaccination campaign against meningitis was launched in the capital, Kigali, on Thursday, against a backdrop of the recent pandemic in the eastern and central parts of the country, the Rwanda News Agency reported. Launching the effort, Health Minister Marie Mugabo told students and staff at APACE, a secondary school in the city's Nyamirambo District, that the vaccine could protect them for up to three months. She said that the entire population of the city would be vaccinated after all students and teachers had received theirs. The World Health Organisation reported that as at 2 September, 636 meningitis cases and 83 deaths had been reported in eight of 12 provinces in the country. It said at the time that it, the Ministry of Health, Medecins Sans Frontieres and the United Nations Children's Fund had launched a consolidated appeal for two million doses of vaccine for populations at risk.