In this week’s show, aid to Afghanistan in the international spotlight, a deadly bacterial meningitis alert in northeastern DR Congo, Yemen’s “unbearable” war drags on, and alarming developments in northern Ethiopia, where the “hungry season” has started, as conflict escalates across Tigray’s borders.
A deadly outbreak of meningitis has been declared in a northeastern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the World Health Organization (WHO) have been supporting health authorities to deploy an initial emergency response team.
More than 28 million children in northern Nigeria will be protected against measles and meningitis through an immunization campaign carried out by the authorities alongside international partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO).
Africa’s “meningitis belt” is so far experiencing much lower levels of cases than at the same time during last year’s annual epidemic season, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today.
A new meningitis vaccine has proven effective in West African children, trumping any other vaccine currently on the market in the region and providing hope that the epidemic will eventually be eliminated, a United Nations-backed partnership announced today.
United Nations humanitarian agencies are stepping up their efforts to combat a deadly outbreak of meningitis across West Africa, warning that the highly contagious disease could spread even more rapidly in coming months during the traditional annual migration period within the region.
The United Nations health agency is coordinating a mass vaccination and treatment campaign to combat meningitis outbreaks in four African countries that have already killed 1,670 people and infected nearly 16,000 others with a disease which can result in brain damage, hearing loss or learning disability in 10 to 20 per cent of survivors.
A rare strain of meningitis, which only two years ago killed 1,500 people in Burkina Faso, is now being controlled thanks to a coordinated strategy to produce a matching vaccine in record time, thus averting a possible “enormous tragedy,” the United Nations health agency announced today.
