News: Regions

Though Burkina-Faso, Mali and Niger form part of a belt across Africa traditionally associated with high rates of meningitis, statistics show that this year the rates of meningitis A are the lowest ever recorded during an epidemic season. This is the result of the successful introduction of a new vaccine MenAfriVac. Nearly 20 million people were vaccinated in a massive immunization campaign in these three countries. New analyses published in the journal Health Affairs shows that introducing this vaccine in seven highly endemic African countries could save as much as US$ 300 million (€ 210 million) over a decade and prevent about 1 million cases of disease. To bridge the funding gap of US$ 475 million (€ 332 million) for scaling up the programme, the GAVI Alliance has contributed US$ 100 million (€ 70 million) for the campaigns in Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria. Even though the vaccine is highly affordable at less than US$ 0.50 (€ 0.35) per dose, the significant funding gap needs to be closed if the vaccine is to be rolled out in all 25 countries of the meningitis belt by 2016.