Description of the situation
27 March 1996
Disease Outbreak Reported
In a recent report from the WHO Office for the African Region the accumulated number of cases of meningitis had increased to 51 541 with 6 504 deaths (case fatality rate 12.6%). The increase was largely from the over 9 000 additional cases reported in Nigeria. More than 4 000 of them were new cases reported in the past week. Major increases were also reported in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Togo.
The following number of cases (deaths) have been reported in:
Benin: 424 (56); Burkina Faso: 11 866 (1 064); Cameroon: 5 (1); Central African Republic: 155 (22); Chad: 505 (53); Ghana: 18 (0); Mali: 1 404 (227); Niger: 6 518 (676); Nigeria: 30 212 (4 346); Tanzania: 99(8); Togo: 505 (53), Zaire: 69 (5). No cases have been reported in Burundi, Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Mauritania, and Senegal.