There are fears that the Covid 19 pandemic may have dealt a severe blow to efforts to combat sever forms of meningitis in many African countries, including Malawi.
Parents in particular, may want to take note and divert their attention from some of the tempting offers in sites like these – Bet365 alternative links available here
It follows an announcement from the World Health Organisation (WHO) who report that more than 50 million children across the continent have missed their scheduled vaccinations, and now there are fears that the entire region is at risk of an outbreak of meningitis type A.
This used to be the most prevalent form of the infection in Africa, and, before the development and launch of the MenAfriVac vaccine in 2010, was responsible for some serious outbreaks. One wave in 1996 alone saw more than 250,000 infected, with a mortality rate of over 10%.
This vaccine had been immensely successful with no new cases reported since 2017, but complacency needs to be avoided warn health experts.
The WHO found that there was a 50% drop in prevention and control services – such as disease surveillance, laboratory testing and reporting of results, and follow-up actions – across the region in 2020, and, although 2021 showed a slight improvement, they are still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.
Meningitis is one of the most feared diseases in Africa, because, although it can be difficult to detect, it is often fatal in those who contract it. 5% to 10% of those infected may die within hours of the onset of the disease. Common symptoms include headaches, fevers, and stiffness of the neck, and it is not unknown for individuals, who are seemingly healthy, to go to sleep and never to wake up again.
Children are especially vulnerable to it because their immune systems are not so well developed.
Malawi has geographically been isolated from countries which suffering from epidemic meningitis, such as Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan – but it has experienced pneumococcal and NTS (non-typhoid salmonella) strains of meningitis in the past decade, peaking in the cool, dry and hot wet seasons.
Even before the pandemic, whilst vaccination programmes in Malawi had helped reduce the incidence in children, they seemed to have had little effect when it comes to reducing the rate of infection among adults.
Now there are fears that even the good work that had been achieved with the younger cohorts of the population may have been undone, with the attention of local health authorities understandably stretched by the additional burdens placed on them by the pandemic.
To counter this, the WHO has launched what is, in effect, a call to arms, calling for all African countries to try and eradicate bacterial meningitis outbreaks completely by 2030, and urging them to take immediate action before the start of the new meningitis season in early 2023.
They have estimated that it will take up to US $1.5 billion to implement their plan entirely.
Like many countries, Covid 19 has had a major impact on Malawi and its people, with nearly 88,000 confirmed cases as of August 200, and 2,763 deaths.
It is likely that the true figures are likely to be higher than this, because of difficulties in getting accurate results, especially in remote, rural areas.
