DRC – The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have endorsed the new US$1.5B regional strategy that sets out a roadmap for African countries to shore up diagnosis, surveillance, care, advocacy and vaccination to eliminate meningitis outbreaks, curb deaths by 70% and halve infections.
World Health Organization and partners have launched a roadmap aimed at stopping bacterial meningitis outbreaks by 2030, urging countries to implement it rapidly before the start of the meningitis season in January 2023.
WHO estimates that US$1.5 billion will be required between now and 2030 to implement the plan, which if fully adopted will save more than 140,000 lives every year in the African region and significantly reduce disability.
Meningitis is caused by inflammation of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord and is transmitted via a sneeze, saliva or phlegm from the nose and throat of infected persons. Acute bacterial meningitis is one of the deadliest and most disabling forms of the illness.
WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Matshidiso Moeti urged countries to ramp up implementation of the new WHO regional roadmap, noting that more than 400 million Africans are still at risk of seasonal meningitis outbreaks.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti said, “Aside from the toll on human life, outbreaks negatively impact health systems, our fragile economies, and impoverish entire populations forced to contend with multiple health and socio-economic challenge.”
She further said that the defeat of meningitis type A is of one of Africa’s biggest success stories in health, noting that the fallout from COVID-19, hampers the region’s drive to eliminate the bacterial infection as a public health threat once and for all and could lead to catastrophic resurgences.
Based on reports from countries, the World Health Organization found that meningitis control activities were reduced by 50% in 2020 compared with 2019, with a slight improvement in 2021.
The World Health Organization observed that the COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted meningitis prevention and control services, with disease surveillance, laboratory confirmation of cases and outbreak investigations all steeply declining.
“With the COVID-19 pandemic delaying meningitis vaccination campaigns for more than 50 million children in Africa, the region is at a heightened risk of outbreaks of meningitis type A, which has nearly been eliminated on the continent,” says WHO.
The agency further revealed that Benin, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria and Togo delayed campaigns with the MenAfriVac vaccine aimed at protecting a total of 50 million children under 12 years of age against meningitis type A.
Despite the enormous challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the drive to eliminate meningitis type A has been immensely successful since no new cases have been reported since 2017.
“With WHO and partners’ support, more than 350 million people in 24 high-risk African countries have received the MenAfriVac vaccine since 2010,” the agency outlined.
WHO further said that historically, meningitis type A was the highest cause of meningitis outbreaks in Africa while noting that controlling this lethal form of meningitis has led to fewer deaths from meningitis type A and other types of the microorganism.
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