Meningitis A vaccine in Africa

The MenAfriVa, introduced into Africa in 2010, has been a huge success: the caseload of Meningitis A has plummeted to zero in 16 countries that organized mass vaccination campaigns. However, health experts now worry that this one-off success will not, at least in some countries, be followed by the introduction of MenAfriVac into routine schedules of infant vaccination. A study just published in Clinical Infectious Diseases by Andromachi Karachaliou of Cambridge University and her colleagues shows what this could lead to: Ms Karachaliou’s computer model predicts that the epidemics will return with a vengeance in about 15 years if MenAfriVac does not become a routine childhood jab, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends it should.

Read the full story in The Economist online…