515,000 doses of meningitis vaccine due to arrive

A consignment of 515,000 doses of vaccine and other medical supplies is due to arrive in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Tuesday to strengthen efforts to contain a meningitis epidemic that has, so far, killed 65 people and affected at least another 445, including 148 children, the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, reported. The consignment, which includes syringes and antibiotics, and has been funded by the US Agency for International Development and the UK's Department for International Development, follows an earlier UNICEF delivery of 150,00 doses of vaccine and related material, and a similar quantity by Medecins Sans Frontieres. The Rwandan Ministry of Health has also provided 238,700 doses of vaccine. "We are very concerned about he situation here in Rwanda, as well as the meningitis outbreak in Burundi," Theophane Nikyema, the UNICEF representative in Rwanda, said. Initially, the disease had been confined to the southwestern Rwandan prefecture of Butare, where it first broke out in June, but thereafter spreading to Kibungo Prefecture in the east, UNICEF Rwanda reported. It said health officials in Kibilizi District first suspected an outbreak of malaria, because most patients were exhibiting symptoms of fever and testing positive for malaria. However, when antimalarial treatment failed and subsequent tests were done, meningitis was identified. At least 1.2 million people in Butare and Kibungo were at risk, UNICEF reported, "half of them children and young people aged under 18 years". The Ministry of Health has already upgraded four districts to epidemic status and three more are on alert. Meningococcus is the bacterium that enters the brain and causes cerebrospinal meningitis, which can be fatal.