Senegal Health Min denies Meningitis epidemic exists
Senegal’s Health Minister has said there is no Meningitis epidemic in the country.
Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck added that at least one hundred and 70 cases of Meningitis would have to be registered in a week, for there to be an epidemic.
She was speaking during a visit to Senegal’s Dioubbel region, where one hundred and five suspected cases of the W 135 strain were registered with 15 confirmed cases.
The last meningitis epidemic in Senegal was in 1999, contained thanks to vaccination campaigns against the disease.
Earlier, health officials confirmed that two people were killed by the new strain of meningitis in Senegal.
There have been 3 confirmed and 214 suspected cases of the W135 meningitis strain since mid-February this year.
Seck said there was an outbreak of the W-135 strain of the disease, but insisted that the emphasis is on the surveillance and the care of the patients, as the vaccine for the strain is not available.
The Senegalese Health Minister promised an adequate response to the outbreak, including in the many Koranic schools locally called, Daara.
We don’t have any problem taking care of patients and we are even going to increase our capacity.
“I have asked the doctor in charge of this region to see how to intervene in the Koranic schools or Daaras, because we are in a region with many Daraas. And it is not easy to conduct a health check in them because this disease is not easy to manage,” Senegal’s Health Minister said.
Seck added that there was a lot of work to do in the affected region and other parts of the country in fighting the Meningitis disease.
“We would like to make a documentary about it and present it to the other regions, in case they have an outbreak in their own Daaras,” she told reporters.
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