Meningitis

Various West African countries have been affected by meningitis in recent months. They include Chad, where the disease has killed 83 of the 798 people known to have contracted it between 25 December 2000 and 15 February, the World Health Organisation reported on Tuesday. A mass vaccination campaign is underway in the affected areas, which are in the southwest of the country. In northern Benin, 45 of the 603 persons afflicted with the disease have died since January. Meningitis sweeps across the Sahelian region each dry season, affecting thousands of people from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east.