West Africa: New vaccine for mass campaign against meningitis

More than 20 million people will be vaccinated between now and the end of the year in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger as a mass vaccination campaign using a new conjugate vaccine unfolds across West Africa. Manufactured in India, MenAfriVac offers health authorities a powerful weapon against a deadly disease. Meningitis is an infection of the membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal column. It is most prevalent in a region known as 'the meningitis belt', which extends across sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east.