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Marc Laforce

New Protection Against Meningitis

by Marc Laforce
Marc Laforce
F. Marc LaForce, MD Project Director, PATH Marc LaForce joined the Meningiti
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 Monday, 17 January 2011 Category Logistics and programmatic issues related to new vaccine introduction 2 Comments

Starting this week, families in sub-Saharan Africa will finally get a long-term solution against a deadly disease. A new meningitis vaccine called MenAfriVac™ is reaching millions of people in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger beginning today, and neighboring countries will soon follow. This is the first vaccine ever developed to provide sustained protection against the specific strain that causes most outbreaks of bacterial meningitis in Africa’s meningitis belt. More than 450 million people are at risk of meningococcal A meningitis caused by Neisseria meningitidis, which can explode in large epidemics.  The disease kills one in ten people who get sick, and leaves a quarter of survivors deaf or with other severe disabilities.

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