A new epidemic is threatening West Africa and it is not Ebola. An epidemic of meningitis has killed over 500 people in Niger out of the 8,234 people got infected by the disease, the World Health Organization confirmed on Tuesday.
According to the WHO, the current state of the outbreak has worried them for it was unprecedented. The strain of the disease is not normally found in Africa and the supply of the vaccine for the disease is not enough.
In fact, in the early weeks of May, the rate of infection was tripling every two weeks, reports Reuters. Despite the efforts to provide vast vaccination in affected areas, the number of the cases slowed but did not totally eliminate it.
WHO spokesman Cory Couillard said in an emailed response to Reuters that the rate of disease proliferation peaked on May 10 when there were 2,189 cases and 132 deaths. However, by the last week of May, it slowed down to 264 cases and 8 deaths.
Meanwhile, Outbreak News Today reports that the epidemic in Niger and neighboring Nigeria is caused by a different strain of the potentially-deadly bacteria. The two strains seen as culprits are meningococcus C and meningococcus W135.
Bacterial meningitis affects over 4,000 people and causes 500 deaths in the U.S. each year. However, every year, bacterial meningitis epidemics affect more than 400 million people living in the 21 countries of the "African meningitis belt" (from Senegal to Ethiopia). Niger is one of these countries.