Vaccines ready for 50 million in Africa’s ‘Meningitis Belt’

A huge vaccination campaign to protect 50 million people against meningitis has been launched in seven African countries aiming to stamp out the deadly virus, health officials have said. The so-called ‘Meningitis Belt’ countries — Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan — are to get the jabs to ensure “a dramatic impact across the continent,” said Seth Berkley, managing director of GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation), the group backed by Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates. “We’ve known for a long time that there are terrible epidemics of meningitis every five to seven years in the ‘Meningitis Belt’,” Berkley told reporters in Geneva. “Nobody really understands why, but there are hundreds of thousands of cases, if not millions.” Meningitis can kill within 48 hours and cause brain damage, hearing loss or learning difficulties in 20 percent of sufferers, GAVI said. The vaccine, produced in association with the Serum Institute of India and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was previously used in Burkina Faso where it led to the eradication of the disease after a year, Berkley said. Just as important, he added, the lack of disease meant that economic development could continue in developing countries, whereas previous epidemics tended to stop trade in its tracks.