Anti-meningitis campaign in Burundi needs more public education, UN says

While controlling the spread of meningitis in Burundi seems manageable, the country needs more vaccine for nationwide campaigns and better public education to recognize symptoms of the disease, the United Nations health agency said today.

As one commune was vaccinated, meningitis cases turned up in neighbouring areas, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said while the Government of Burundi estimated that it needed 1 million doses of vaccine, only 455,000 doses were immediately available. The rest would take up to three weeks to arrive from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

In its third round of vaccinations, WHO is currently inoculating 102,583 people in Ngozi Province, it said.

Meanwhile, a weeklong anti-polio drive employing 1,500 trained local volunteers in the Central African Republic (CAR) and giving the second part of a two-dose vaccine has ended successfully, WHO and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.

Reports of two cases of the deadly "wild polio" in the northern part of the country were confirmed two months ago.