New meningitis vaccine slashes cases by 94 per cent

A new vaccine being rolled out in the “meningitis belt” that stretches across north-central Africa has reduced cases of the potentially fatal disease by 94 per cent, doctors reported in The Lancet. Researchers monitored the spread of type A meningococcal disease in Chad after the new vaccine, MenAfriVac, had been approved by world health watchdogs in 2010. Three regions of Chad where around 1.8 million people had been vaccinated by December 2011 were compared with the rest of the country where the vaccine had yet to be introduced. In the vaccinated regions, around 2.5 cases of meningitis of any kind, and none of meningitis A, were recorded per 100,000 people, compared to more than 43 cases per 100,000 in the unvaccinated areas, a fall in incidence of 94 per cent. The risk of transmitting the germ was reduced by 98 per cent among those who had been vaccinated, according to throat...