New Meningitis Vaccine May End Epidemics in West Africa

The deadly meningitis epidemics that sweep across Africa killing many thousands of children could be ended by a new vaccine which has just been successfully trialled, scientists say today.

The vaccine has been developed by a Seattle-based non-profit organisation called the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (Path), together with the World Health Organization and an Indian vaccine producer.

Collectively they call themselves the Meningitis Vaccine Project. Preliminary results of a trial amongst 600 toddlers aged 12 to 23 months in Mali have shown that it is substantially more effective than other vaccines against the meningitis A strain that periodically ravages west Africa. It produced levels of antibodies that were 20 times higher than anything before in the children.

While the vaccine must now go into large-scale trials and will only be officially shown to work when a meningitis epidemic hits, hopes are very high. "When it becomes part of the public health arsenal, this vaccine will make a real difference in Africa," said Dr F Marc LaForce, the director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project. "The vaccine will allow elimination of the meningococcal epidemics that have afflicted the continent for more than 100 years."

"This important study brings real hope that the lives of thousands of children, teenagers, and young adults will be saved by immunization, and that widespread suffering, sickness and socioeconomic disruption can be avoided," said Dr Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization.

The vaccine will sell for just $0.40 (20p) a dose across the 21 countries that form what is known as the meningitis belt, from Senegal and the Gambia in the west to Ethiopia in the east, where 430 million people are at risk. The worst-ever epidemic there, in 1996-97, caused 250,000 to become ill and 25,000 died. Many of those who survive the disease have permanent damage such as epilepsy, deafness and mental retardation.

If all goes well, the vaccine will be given in routine mass immunization campaigns to people aged between two and 29 - the age group worst affected by the disease.