Nigeria launches ‘revolutionary’ meningitis vaccine

Nigeria has launched a ‘revolutionary’ vaccine against meningitis, in what the WHO said wass a world first. ‘Meningitis is an old and deadly foe, but this new vaccine holds the potential to change the trajectory of the disease, preventing future outbreaks and saving many lives,' WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Nigeria's roll-out brings us one step closer to our goal to eliminate meningitis by 2030,’ he said. News24 reports that the Men5CV vaccine shields against the five major strains of the meningococcal bacteria (A, C, W, Y and X) in a single shot. The WHO said it offered broader protection than the current vaccine used in much of Africa, which is only effective against the A strain. Last year the number of meningitis cases jumped 50% in Africa. Nigeria, with a population of 220m, is one of the continent's 26 meningitis hyper-endemic countries, an area known as the African Meningitis Belt.