ABIDJAN,
Ivory Coast (AP)--Outbreaks of meningitis have claimed 1,606 lives
across sub-Saharan Africa since the beginning of the year and will
likely kill more people in coming weeks, a U.N. health official
said Thursday.
Separate epidemics
in five African countries--Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad, Ethiopia
and Niger--have already infected 17,680 people, Max Hardiman said
by telephone from the headquarters of the United Nations' World
Health Organization in Geneva.
``There have
already been five well-documented epidemics in Africa this year,''
Hardiman said.
``But the
epidemics are ongoing. This (death toll) is only the total to
date and the numbers will increase over the next few weeks.''
Meningitis,
an infection of membranes that protect the brain and spinal cord,
often appears in Africa during dry seasons, frequently raging
throughout a geographic belt stretching from Senegal in the west
to Ethiopia in the east.
With treatment,
only 1 percent of infected people die.
Africa suffered
its worst outbreak in 1996 when more than 150,000 people--most
of them children--were infected in several countries and 16,000
died. Another 16,000 suffered brain damage or paralysis.
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