Meningitis kills nine in Arua district

Sep 13, 2007

A fresh outbreak of meningitis has hit Arua district. Dr. Patrick Anguzu, district director of health services, said 38 new cases with 9 deaths had been registered in the past six weeks.

By Anne Mugisa
and Frank Mugabi

A fresh outbreak of meningitis has hit Arua district. Dr. Patrick Anguzu, district director of health services, said 38 new cases with 9 deaths had been registered in the past six weeks.

“We have done rapid tests and got four positive cases. As far as we are concerned this is meningitis. We sent some samples to WHO, which they submitted to the Central Public Health laboratories for further scrutiny,” Dr. Anguzu told The New Vision.

The first case was reported on July 10 from Madua village, Eceku parish in Arivu sub-county. He said the disease had since spread to Vurra and Logiri sub-counties, adding that treatment centers had been opened at Kuluva hospital, Bondo and Logiri health centers.
The new outbreak comes barely five months after the highly contagious disease ravaged the region, killing over 60 people and infecting thousands others.

The Commissioner for Community Health, Dr. Sam Okware, yesterday allayed fears that this was a new epidemic. He said the ministry had dispatched experts to the area to carry out tests. Results would be out by next week.

There are different types of meningitis and not all of them cause epidemics, Okware explained.

The types of bacterial meningococcal meningitis that cause epidemics, the A and C types, had not been confirmed yet, he said.

The disease that affected the districts in the West Nile region five months ago was contained in April after the Government, assisted by the World Health Organisation, carried out mass vaccinations.

The newly affected areas, however, were not covered during the vaccination exercise because infections had not reached the epidemic threshold of 10 cases per 100,000 people per week.

Meningococcal meningitis has an average incubation period of 4 days and is transmitted from person to person through droplets of respiratory or throat secretions.

Symptoms include severe headache, fever, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, dislike of bright light and drowsiness.

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