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September 6, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Rwanda: Vaccination Campaign Against Meningitis Launched in Three Provinces" BBC Worldwide Monitoring (www.monitor.bbc.co.uk) (09/05/02)

Forty meningitis-related deaths have occurred in northeastern Rwanda since mid-August, and the Ministry of Health recently launched a vaccination campaign in three provinces and two districts of Kigali Ngali in central Rwanda in an attempt to control the outbreak.  On Tuesday, officials in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, received a consignment, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.K. Department for International Development, containing 515,000 doses of the meningitis vaccine and other medical supplies, such as syringes and antibiotics.  UNICEF and Medecins Sans Frontieres earlier each donated 150,000 doses of the vaccine, with the Rwandan Ministry of Health providing 238,700 doses as well.  A UNICEF representative in Rwanda noted that the epidemic has taken the lives of 65 people throughout the country, with 445 others infected.

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