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Fiji

Fiji Meningococcal C Outbreak Situation Report: Volume 04, 2018 (Report Date: April 19th, 2018)

Attachments

Overview

• The Fiji Ministry of Health and Medical Services (MoHMS) declared an outbreak of meningococcal C on Tuesday March 20th, 2018.

• The Ministry, through the National Meningococcal Disease Taskforce, continues to coordinate the response to the outbreak, including strengthening surveillance, laboratory diagnostics, clinical management, public health interventions and risk communications.

• The Fijian Government has committed to conducting a mass meningococcal C vaccination program for all Fijians aged 1-19 during this outbreak.

• The Coca Cola Games (annual national high school athletics competition) will be held April 19th-21st and is a priority for response this week.

Surveillance

National surveillance is coordinated by the Fiji Centre for Communicable Disease Control (FCCDC) through weekly reporting of meningococcal cases via indicator based surveillance via EWARS; EWARS event-based surveillance (EBS) reporting of suspected cases; laboratory based surveillance for Neisseria meningitidis. EBS is now being used for reporting by private practitioners.

National Update(1st Jan-19th April, 2018)

• MoHMS reports both confirmed and suspected cases. Therefore, there have been a total of 55 cases from January 1st to April 19th, 2018. Of these, 23 are laboratory confirmed, and 32 are either suspected or probable cases (WHO case definitions).

• There has been an average of 3.7 cases per week in the last 4 weeks, with 4 confirmed deaths and 2 suspected.There have been no deaths in the last four weeks (since outbreak declaration).

• As of April 12th, all cases were below the age of 29, with 94.5% < age 19:

< 5 years old with 38.18% of cases
5-9 years 12.7%
10-14 years 23.6%
15-19 years 20.0%
20-29 years-5.5%

  • Males account for 58.2% of cases, and females 41.8%.