meningitis A vaccine

The World Health Organization has given the go-ahead for a meningitis A vaccine to be used in infants younger than a year old in Africa. The vaccine, MenAfriVac, has been highly effective since its introduction four years ago in protecting children and adults ages 1 to 29.
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The inexpensive, safe vaccine has been administered to more than 215 million people in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa's so-called meningitis belt, where the disease occurs regularly in an area between Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east.
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The countries include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Togo and Gambia.
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One of the most devastating outbreaks occurred in 1996-97, when an epidemic of meningitis A infected a quarter-million people and killed 25,000 in a few months.
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But since the widespread use of MenAfriVac in 2010, there has been a dramatic decrease in the number of cases and it confers "community" immunity among unvaccinated groups.
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In 2012, there was a 90 percent drop in the incidence and transmission of meningitis A in Chad.
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Meningitis A causes high fever and severe headache, along with vomiting and nausea, seizures, sleepiness and sensitivity to light.
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It is thought that giving the drug to infants as part of a routine vaccination schedule will further reduce the number of meningitis outbreaks.
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The low-cost MenAfriVac was developed by a partnership between the nonprofit Meningitis Vaccine Project and Serum Institute of India.
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By Jessica Berman
VOA