ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) -
The Red Cross said on Friday it urgently needed funds to combat a deadly outbreak
of meningitis in Ethiopia which has already killed more than 100 people.
``There
is serious cause for alarm about the spread of this epidemic, which to-date has
killed over 100 people and nearly 2,000 cases were reported,'' the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said in a statement.
It
said it urgently needed $750,000 to purchase vaccines, needles and syringes to
check the spread of the disease, which causes inflammation of the membranes covering
the brain and spinal chord.
The Federation has already released $150,000
from its Disaster Relief Emergency Fund to allow the campaign to get under way.
Ethiopia
is among 12 African states in the ``meningitis belt,'' where an epidemic of the
killer disease appears on average once every eight to 10 years.
In the
belt, which stretches from Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west, meningitis
usually starts during the dry season in densely populated areas. |
