Meningitis has infected nearly 16,000 people and killed 1,670 in sub-Saharan Africa in the last two months, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
The United Nations agency said it was working with Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to contain the outbreak with vaccinations in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda.
Some 1.5 million people in the four affected countries have been targeted by mass vaccination campaigns so far, though large numbers of displaced people and those living in hard-to-access areas have presented a challenge, the WHO said.
Outbreaks are worse during the dry season in the “meningitis belt” that runs from East to West Africa.
Transmitted by coughing or sneezing, meningitis is an infection of the thin lining that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. It can cause brain damage and deafness, and kills between 5 and 10 percent of those infected.