Meningitis outbreak in north-east kills 36

The Ivorian government has appealed for 200,000 doses of meningitis vaccine to combat an epidemic which has caused 36 deaths in the rebel-held northeast of the country since March.

Health Minister Albert Mabri Toikeuse made the appeal to international relief agencies last Friday. Approximatively 100 cases of meningitis have been recorded in and around Bouna, the main town in northeastern Cote d’Ivoire, a health ministry official told IRIN.

Meningitis is a highly contagious infection of the brain which can lead to death. It is caused by a virus and bacteria that are often found in airborne dust. The disease is particularly prevalent in West Africa towards the end of the dry season.

The Ivorian Health Ministry said it was working with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) to obtain over 200,000 doses of meningitis vaccine to stem the spread of the disease in Bouna and the surrounding district.

No preventive vaccination programmes have been carried out there since the outbreak of Cote d'Ivoire's civil war in September 2002.

The rebel "New Forces" movement has occupied the northern half of the country since then and most schools, health clinics and other state-funded services in rebel territory have been forced to shut down.

The ministry source told IRIN that 20,000 meningitis vaccinations were carried out in Bouna between 11 and 18 March, shortly after the first cases of the disease were diagnosed there.

UNICEF and WHO hoped to eventually run a three-year programme to vaccinate 233,000 people in the northeast of Cote d'Ivoire, where the dry climate favours the spread of meningitis.

Doctor Tanoh Bian, a WHO infectious disease specialist, told IRIN that Cote d'Ivoire, which lies outside the “meningitis belt” of Africa that runs from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east, mostly suffers from the Type-A strain of meningitis, the most common variety of the disease found in Africa.