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Fifteen people have died out of regarding 60 cases of meningitis recorded since the beginning of last August in the mining town of Mangi, territory of Banalia (Tshopo).
According to the head doctor of the Banalia health zone, Patrick Mbenga, a team is mobilized to follow up on cases mainly in the Mangi health area:
“We had some drugs from the WHO and we are doing lumbar punctures and trying to take care of cases to limit the damage. Otherwise we would have a lot of deaths”.
For him, the lack of vaccination is the main cause of the resurgence of this disease:
“There is a great mobility of the population. To have universal coverage, it will be necessary to have a minimum of 90% of the population vaccinated. So that the population of a health area is protected. Unfortunately 25% of this population moves at any time. This means that the population does not have the collective immunity due to this significant mobility. And then (Mangi) it’s a landlocked environment. Routine vaccination does not proceed normally. There is no cold chain. These difficult working conditions and isolation are among the factors that explain this upsurge”.
The head doctor of the Banalia health zone stressed that this situation comes 8 months following the declaration, by the Congolese government, of the end of this epidemic in this entity, i.e. last December.
At the end of last year, meningitis had caused 205 deaths out of 2,602 registered patients.
In addition, the administrator of the territory of Banalia who is president of the local coordination committee affirms that the partners are already informed of this situation and are preparing for a mission in the field.
