| ABIDJAN,
Ivory Coast (AP)--Outbreaks of meningitis have claimed 1,606
lives across sub-Saharan Africa since the beginning of the
year and will likely kill more people in coming weeks, a U.N.
health official said Thursday.
Separate
epidemics in five African countries--Burkina Faso, Benin,
Chad, Ethiopia and Niger--have already infected 17,680 people,
Max Hardiman said by telephone from the headquarters of
the United Nations' World Health Organization in Geneva.
``There
have already been five well-documented epidemics in Africa
this year,'' Hardiman said.
``But
the epidemics are ongoing. This (death toll) is only the
total to date and the numbers will increase over the next
few weeks.''
Meningitis,
an infection of membranes that protect the brain and spinal
cord, often appears in Africa during dry seasons, frequently
raging throughout a geographic belt stretching from Senegal
in the west to Ethiopia in the east.
With
treatment, only 1 percent of infected people die.
Africa
suffered its worst outbreak in 1996 when more than 150,000
people--most of them children--were infected in several
countries and 16,000 died. Another 16,000 suffered brain
damage or paralysis.
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