Africa-Press – Botswana. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday that Covid-19 has delayed vaccination against meningitis for more than 50 million children in Africa, jeopardizing its elimination and exposing the population to a new outbreak.
To prevent this, WHO and partners have launched a roadmap to end bacterial meningitis outbreaks by 2030, urging countries to implement it quickly before the meningitis season begins in January 2023.
Although no cases of type A meningitis have been reported in Africa in the last five years, outbreaks still occur and are caused by other types of meningococcal bacteria.
In 2019, 140,552 people in the African region died from various types of meningitis and since 2013 large outbreaks caused by type C meningitis have been reported in seven countries.
In 2021, a four-month outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) claimed 205 lives. In addition, the African region is responsible for the highest number of new cases of meningitis worldwide and is the only region still experiencing outbreaks. The continent reports 100 cases of meningitis per 100,000 population, the highest incidence in the world.
According to national reports, WHO found that in 2020, meningitis control activities were reduced by 50% compared to 2019, with a slight improvement in 2021.
Benin, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Togo have delayed MenAfriVac campaigns aimed at protecting a total of 50 million children under 12 from type A meningitis.
Historically, type A meningitis was the leading cause of meningitis outbreaks in Africa. In 2010, however, Africa began to tackle type A meningitis when an effective vaccine – ‘MenAfriVac’ – was developed and implemented.
The vaccine was developed in response to a request from African health ministers following an outbreak of type A meningitis in 1996 that infected more than 250,000 people and killed more than 25,000 in just a few months . more than 350 million people in 24 high-risk African countries have received this vaccine since 2010.
“The campaign to eliminate this type of meningitis has been immensely successful,” according to the WHO statement.
Although type A meningitis accounted for 90% of cases and deaths before 2010, no new cases have been reported since 2017. Control of this lethal form of meningitis has led to fewer deaths from type A meningitis and other types of microorganisms. While 50% of people with meningitis died in 2004, 95% of cases survived in 2021.
“Defeating type A meningitis is one of Africa’s biggest health success stories, but the fallout from Covid-19 hampers our effort to eliminate once and for all this bacterial infection that is a threat to public health and can lead to catastrophic resurgences,” said WHO regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti.
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