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Central African Republic:
Scramble to Contain
Meningitis Epidemic
13 February 2008
Nairobi — Aid agencies and the authorities in the Central
African Republic (CAR) have joined forces to vaccinate
hundreds of thousands of people at risk of meningitis in the
northwest of the country, officials said.
Toby Lanzer, the UN humanitarian coordinator in CAR,
said the latest vaccination effort was targeting at least
80,000 people at the centre of the epidemic.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) reported on 11 February that meningitis
was spreading across three northwestern districts and was
threatening up to one million people. The announcement
followed a declaration by national authorities of an
outbreak of meningitis after several cases and numerous
deaths were reported in Ouham, Ouham Pendé and Nana-
Grebizi districts in the first five weeks of this year.
"In the town of Kaga Bandoro and neighbouring villages
alone, 38 cases of meningitis have been reported, of which
several were lethal," OCHA reported. "The ill are now
being treated."
Meningitis takes its name from the meninges, the protective
membranes covering the central nervous system, which
become inflamed as a result of infection by bacteria, viruses
or other agents. Meningitis can kill unless quickly treated
with antibiotics.
The type spreading in CAR is caused by the
meningococcus bacterium. Symptoms can rapidly progress
from fever, headache and neck stiffness to coma and, in
around 10 percent of cases, death.
CAR is part of the meningitis belt that stretches from
Senegal to Ethiopia. Annual outbreaks occur mainly in the
dry season (January-May).
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) had requested
US$100,000 from the UN Emergency Response Fund
(ERF), and the money has been released to buy vaccines.
The ERF is part of an aid programme in CAR, supported by
donors, with $69 million to protect, feed and care for
people displaced and affected by violence.
Ruhala Bissimwa, the medical coordinator for Merlin in
Kaga Bandoro, who has been coordinating the fight against
meningitis, said the country was beyond the threshold for
an epidemic, which is 10 cases per 100,000 people.
"We are very worried, very afraid," he said. "Outbreaks are
being reported in new communes, such as Ngenga in Nana-
Grebizi district, and it is continuing to spread.
"The most important thing is to make vaccines
available to everyone. We are more than a month into
this situation and we are still waiting for vaccines."
OCHA said national stocks of vaccines for the disease
were running short.
"Protecting the people in the north of the Central
African Republic will prevent meningitis from
spreading to the rest of the country and into
neighbouring Chad," OCHA said.
The agency said the health situation in the conflict-torn
north of the country remained dire, with over threequarters
of the population having little, if any, access to
healthcare. Life expectancy stands at 43 years, one of
the lowest in the world.
Violence affects at least one million people in northern
CAR. OCHA estimates there are 197,000 internally
displaced people in the country while 98,000 others
have sought refuge in Chad, Cameroon, or Sudan.
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of
the United Nations ]
http://allafrica.com/stories /200802130507.html
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Continued from page 23– Chronic Fatigue
Multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, CFS,
Tourette syndrome, "learning disabilities," Guillain
Barre Syndrome, idiopathic epilepsy, and many other
neurological conditions may very well be just forms of
polio induced by these vaccines. Salk and Sabin opened
Pandora's box and we now have 72 types of polio rather
than three. But it will be a long time before you read
about this in the mass media -- what would this
revelation do to the credibility of the vaccination
programs so fervently promoted by the federal and state
bureaucrats and the public health doctors?
ACTION TO TAKE
You must resist compulsory vaccination of your
children. It won't be easy. If you have no choice in the
matter, give the child some vitamin C (in dropper form,
if necessary). Then see a homeopathic doctor about a
remedy to protect the child from the coming assault on
his immune system.
Ref: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
1955:273; Neurology, 1954:4; British Medical Journal,
1961:1061; What Doctors Don't Tell You, January
1996; Lancet, October 8, 1994; Journal of the
American Medical Association, 1947:134.
http://www.whale.to/w/douglas.html
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-24- Traditional African Clinic April 2009