Countdown to the launch of a new meningitis vaccine for Africa

Hi, I'm Rachel and I'm MRF's International Development Officer

The official launch of a new meningitis vaccine for Africa - MenAfriVacTM - will take place in Burkina Faso early next month.

The December launch of MenAfriVac^TM will be the start of mass, country-wide vaccination campaigns in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger - countries plagued by bacterial meningitis. These countries lie within the African Meningitis belt, where every year during the dry season, between December and June, meningococcal meningitis rates skyrocket. People cough and sneeze. Dry air and dusty winds allow bacteria to invade and the deadly infection travels rapidly from one person to the next.

The hope is that MenAfriVac^TM will make huge meningococcal meningitis epidemics a thing of the past. The new vaccine, developed by the Meningitis Vaccine Project, will be offered to 1- to 29-year-olds, and will protect 33 million people from group A meningococcal meningitis, the strain responsible for most outbreaks of meningococcal disease in the meningitis belt.

As final preparations are being made for the vaccines’ launch, follow its progress on PATH’s website

Read more by Rachel about meningitis in Africa

Read about MRF research to improve diagnosis in Africa