WHO and MSF appeal for funds for new meningitis vaccine

The World Health Organization and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) have launched an urgent appeal for funds to purchase six million doses of a new cut-price vaccine that would prevent a dangerous new strain of meningitis triggering an epidemic across sub-Saharan Africa early next year.

Every year the disease—which kills at least 10% of those infected and leaves many more with brain damage, learning difficulties, and deafness—sweeps across the “meningitis belt,” a vast region from Ethiopia to Senegal where 350 million people live.

Last year when …