ON the Issue of Meningitis

Ever since I was a child, I have heard over and over again of outbreaks of cerebrospinal meningitis in many parts of our country, especially the northern parts. As time went on, I quizzed myself on several occasions why this disease seems to be so much of a problem to us. Not long ago, I got to find out the most important causative factor of this disease in sub-saharan Africa is a serotype of a bacteria whose vaccine has long been developed.

Cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM), is the inflammation of the protective coverings of the brain and the spinal cord. It is considered a medical emergency since it could lead to death if not attended to appropriately. It can be caused by a variety of germs and some drugs. In our context, we'll limit ourselves to bacterial meningitis since it's what is causing us so much trouble.

Many years ago, community acquired meningitis posed a serious public health problem to most parts of the world including the advanced countries. But thanks to serious work done by willing countries, vaccines were able to eliminate community acquired meningitis as a problem. However, in our part of the world, this disease has ravaged us by these same agents for about a century (if not more) and it continues to happen.

Why?

Most cases of community acquired bacterial meningitis are caused by serotypes of Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococus pneumoniae,type B Haemophilus influenzae, group B Streptococus. The danger from most of these agents can be reduced considerably by administering a vaccine. In most countries, these are incorporated into the vaccination scheme so everybody gets to be vaccinated and most people get long lasting protection from these bacteria. In our country and most of our neighbouring ones, we use a strategy called “Early detection and Management”. It works like this: we do not vaccinate the people with the hope they don't get sick of these agents. If luck is not on our side and the disease breaks and a few people die, then authorities come in with the vaccines in hand to prevent further mortality. If asked to decide which group of people you'll like to find yourself when there's an outbreak of meningitis in your community, which will you choose?

Who decides whether someone else has the right to live or not? Who decides who gets this vaccine or not? Who gets to gamble with how many people will die if the disease breaks out? What if an epidermic sets in and the health authorities are not able to move in quickly enough? Mind you, we don't even produce these vaccines. We have to order them from the W.H.O and/or other sources.

Did you know that the guy who died in yesterday's outbreak could have influenced someone's life positively? He could as well have become the turning point in our development agenda, but he's gone. All he had to offer society has been put to waste because we denied him the vaccine he should have gotten a long time ago.

The right to life is a fundamental human right, so is the right to basic and quality health care. Avoid preventable causes of death. YOU have a role to play.

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country”
...John F. Kennedy.

Andrew S. Dzebu.
[email protected]