International health officials are scrambling to find meningitis C vaccines as an outbreak of the child-killing disease threatens to balloon.
Health officials in Nigeria this week repeated demands that the government reopen a lab in Lagos which once produced millions of vaccines.
The director of Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control, Abdulsalami Nasidi, says he fears the potential number of fatalities if a vaccine shortage and meningitis epidemic collide
The first large-scale outbreak of the C strain in decades has already killed 800 of 12 000 people infected this year in Nigeria and neighbouring Niger.
The World Health Organisation says experts have been taken by surprise. Cases have been increasing since 2013.
Health officials want to stockpile five million doses but manufacturers say they cannot produce that amount.
The vaccine against meningitis C. The meningococcal C conjugate (MenC) vaccine is made from a small part of the meningococcal bacteria.
It stimulates the body's immune system to produce antibodies that act as a defence against group C meningococcal disease (meningitis and septicaemia).
Per Second News learnt that Between 26 January and 5 March 2015, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) of the Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria notified WHO of 652 suspected cases of meningococcal disease, including 50 deaths. Cases have been reported in 10 local government areas of 2 states, Kebbi and Sokoto. Laboratory tests have confirmed the predominance of Neisseria meningitidis serogroup C in the affected areas, with no other serogroups being identified.
Investigations revealed that in Zamfara state, there has been a recent emergence of suspected cases of meningococcal disease; however, an outbreak has not yet been confirmed.
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