Description of the situation
21 March 2002
Disease Outbreak Reported
Neisseria meningitidis serogroup W135 has
been laboratory confirmed in cases from 5 districts by the WHO Collaborating Centre for
Reference and Research on Meningococci, Oslo, Norway. A Crisis Committee has been set up by the Ministry of
Health, Burkina Faso. A WHO team is working with the Committee to consider the most
appropriate strategy to control the outbreak, given the presence of the W135 strain.
Measures include epidemiological surveillance, collection and testing of samples,
social mobilization, training and coordination.
As of
20 March, WHO has reported 3 579 cases including 544 deaths (case-fatality rate,
15%) in the entire country. Twelve out of 15 districts have reach the epidemic threshold
and 13 districts are on alert for reaching the threshold. Vaccination campaigns were
carried out in 2001 and recently in 2002 (see previous report)
.