WHO warns meningitis outbreak has begun in West Africa

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed outbreaks of the deadly meningitis bacterium in three West African countries, marking the start of what experts have warned might be the worst meningitis epidemic to hit Africa in a decade.

18 Jan 2008

“One district is on alert in Burkina Faso, an epidemic has been reported in a region of Nigeria and there are two cases in Niger, as well as cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” Professor Kader Kondé, director of WHO's Ouagadougou-based Multi-Disease Surveillance Centre (MDSC) told IRIN.

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