UGANDA: Potential vaccine shortage could hinder anti-meningitis effort - MSF
Source: IRIN
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KAMPALA, 22 February (IRIN) - Efforts to bring a meningitis
outbreak in northwestern Ugandan under control could be hampered by a potential vaccine shortage, an official with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday.
Meningitis has claimed
the lives of 100 people in northwestern Ugandan since the beginning of 2007.
"Ten [African] countries in the so-called meningitis belt have reported cases and some of these have been the new
serotype A strain, which means we shall have epidemics," said Guillaume le Duc, MSF press officer.
According to Le Duc, the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision for Epidemic
Meningitis Control, which coordinates use of the vaccine, had only seven million doses in stock.
"In Uganda, already up to a million doses have been used while outbreaks have been reported in
eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and in southern Sudan in the areas of Yei and Bahr al-Ghazal," Le Duc told IRIN.
Uganda's Health Minister, Stephen Malinga, said more than 2,000 cases of
meningitis had been reported in the west Nile region, which comprises the districts of Nebbi, Arua and Adjumani, but was optimistic the disease would be brought under control.
"On Monday we are
starting to immunise up to 500,000 people in Moyo, Yumbe and Adjuman districts," he said.
Le Duc expressed doubt over the world's capacity to replenish the meningitis vaccine.
"Sanofi Pasteur, the
sole provider of the A/C vaccine, announced in May that it was stopping production altogether while it transfers its production to another site. As a result, there will be no capacity to produce
additional vaccines this year. It is extremely worrying when you consider that in Nigeria in 1996 more than 13 million people had to be vaccinated over the course of that epidemic," he said. Sanofi
Pasteur is the only European company dedicated to the development of vaccines.
According to Renaud Leray, head of the MSF mission in Uganda, mass vaccination campaigns require proper planning to
preserve the efficacy of the meningitis vaccine. Doses must be stored at between two and eight degrees Celsius during transportation from storage to the point of use.
MSF and the health ministry had
jointly set up a 'cold-chain' based in Arua town, fully equipped with 14 freezers and fridges to produce almost 450kg of ice every day to preserve the vaccine, according to Leray.
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