Ouagadougou calling: Meningitis’ deaths in Burkina Faso top 800, arrives in capital city

At the end of March, the Burkinabé government had tallied 650 deaths due to meningitis throughout the country. The ministry of health has now listed the death toll at 800 out of more than 8,000 cases, says Agence France Press.

What’s worse, meningitis mortalities have been reported in Ouagadougou, the nation’s capital of somewhere around 1.3 million (depending on the day). The meningitis bacteria usually attacks the pharynx, and is usually transmitted through close contact through sneezing, coughing, sharing utensils or kissing, making those who live in close contact (like in Ouagadougou) or in crowded areas like markets (as in Ouagadougou) more susceptible.

However, the most affected areas are centered near Burkina Faso’s border with Cote d’Ivoire.

Here’s more on the disease that killed more than 1,300 Burkinabé last year.

Meningitis update...

Your Burkina Faso meningitis update, from the Times (of South Africa):

A meningitis epidemic has killed 441 people out of more than 4,000 cases reported in Burkina Faso since the start of January, the health ministry said today.

The outbreak is centred along the border with Ivory Coast, where 44 deaths had been reported by February 20, a day before the two countries announced a joint health programme to tackle the epidemic.

"Between January 1 and March 9, 2008, we have a total of 4,061 suspect cases of meningitis, including 441 deaths, a mortality rate of 10.85 percent," Ousmane Badolo, the ministry official in charge of epidemic disease surveillance told AFP.

Dr Badolo said that of 16 affected districts in Burkina Faso, the outbreak had reached epidemic levels in seven of them. The last official figures issued on March 2 reported 366 deaths out of 3,181 cases.

So far, a (somewhat) quiet year in the Meningitis belt

From China View:

Africa is so far experiencing much lower levels of meningitis cases, compared with those of the same period last year, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported Friday.

Preliminary reports from 13 countries indicated 2,312 cases, including 324 deaths, during the first six weeks of this year in the belt, which stretches from Senegal to Ethiopia.

The number of cases dropped 29 percent from the figure last year, when 3,274 cases, including 413 deaths, had been reported.

However, major outbreaks have still been reported in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), while Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Togo have all reported cases of the highly contagious disease.

But it is not enough to reach epidemic levels. And there have been no cases so far in Cameroon or Chad, WHO said.

According to notes from the World Health Organization, Burkina Faso leads all other countries with 1,422 cases of meningitis and 204 deaths. This represents more than 60 percent of all cases on the continent.

West African meningitis update

From the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which predictably sounds much more helpful in French: Bureau de la Coordination des Affaires Humanitaires.

(I don’t have a link because it was emailed to me. Hat tip: Julianna.)

A worrisome increase in cases of meningitis has been reported in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria since the end of 2007. Several suspected cases of the disease have also been reported in other countries of the region. In Burkina Faso alone, some 297 cases, of which 52 were fatal, have been recorded within the first two weeks of January 2008.

Some eighteen countries of the Sub-Saharan Africa, extending from western Senegal to eastern Ethiopia, are particularly prone to epidemics of meningococcal meningitis, especially during the dry season. The meningococcal meningitis is the only form of bacterial meningitis which can evolve into an epidemic. Although infants are, in general, the group the most vulnerable to the disease, adolescents and young adults can also contract it when an epidemic strikes.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set emergency and epidemic thresholds at 5 cases per every 100,000 inhabitants and 10 cases per every 100,000 inhabitants per week within one health district respectively.

In 2007, West Africa was severely affected by an outbreak of respectively which resulted in deaths of some 2,000 people in 9 countries: Benin, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Burkina Faso, where 75 % of fatal cases were recorded.

It’s here: Meningitis hits Burkina Faso

Right on schedule, too. Just 100 km south of Ouagadougou, meningitis bacteria have infected nearly 120 people, killing 19, the government’s health ministry said. Last year, nearly 26,000 people in Burkina Faso were infected with the disease, killing 1,700 people.

This year portends to be even worse.

From the Journal Chretien:

“The epidemic in Sapouy district has reached an alarming level,” Health minister Alain Bédouma Yoda conceded.

One problem, Yoda said, is that many people in the area were immunized three years ago, making the vaccine no longer effective.

Here is a primer on meningitis in Burkina Faso and throughout West Africa.

It’s the dry season: Do you know where your meningitis vaccine is?

The International Red Cross/Red Crescent recently issued a warning that at least 14 African nations could face one of the worst meningitis epidemics since 250,000 people fell ill with the disease in 1996, in an outbreak that killed 25,000 people.

The affected countries stretch across the continent south of the Tropic of Cancer in what the World Health Organization deems the “meningitis belt,” including Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.

These countries are at risk because they are prone to extremely dusty winds during the dry season along with usually cold nights, decreasing the immunity of the pharynx at the back of the throat. The meningitis bacteria are most easily transmitted through close contact, especially through sneezing, coughing, sharing eating utensils or kissing. Throughout much of the region that makes up the so-called meningitis belt, people often live in crowded family quarters and sometimes travel to large markets, making transmission of the disease easier. (It can also spread quickly in dormitories.)

During last season in Burkina Faso meningitis infected more than 20,000 people, disabling 2,000 and killing more than 1,300. Across Africa, more than 1,600 died from the disease.

The first wave of the disease this season could hit as early as February, the IFRC warned. One problem is there are presently only seven million doses for meningitis vaccines to cover an estimated population of roughly 80 million spread throughout these 14 countries. The IFRC has initiated a €600,000 program that will train 25,000 volunteers in sensitization and community-based health training.

It even sounds dirty
According to WHO, “Meningitis is an infection of the meninges, the thin lining that surrounds the brain and the spinal cord,” which makes it a very serious disease. The two most common forms of meningitis are bacterial and viral. While still dangerous, viral meningitis is far less severe and can be treated with antibiotics.

For most victims, meningitis begins feeling like the flu and people often complain of stick neck, high fever, light sensitivity, confusion, headaches and vomiting. While vaccines only target bacterial meningitis, its symptoms progress much quicker than its viral cousin. This disease, which is fatal in five to 10 percent of all patients, and can cause degrees of brain damage and/or hearing loss in up to 20 percent of victims.

N. meningitidis A, C and W135 are the main strains that attack Africa. One strategy to fight the disease is to vaccinate a “critical percentage” of the population, which will extend protection to those who haven’t received the vaccine. On the international market, vaccines can run as much as $14 per dose, out of the reach of some Africans. Governments often try to purchase the vaccines from an international coordination group at roughly 66 cents per dose. However, these vaccines sometimes can arrive after an epidemic has picked up steam. Another problem is that vaccines do not exist for some serogroups of meningitis.