1. Overview
From 1 January to 18 May 2007, the Federal Ministry of Health of Sudan reported a total of 1,898 suspected cases of meningococcal disease including 106 deaths (case-fatality rate: 5.5 %) from 13 out of 15 states of Northern Sudan. So far, since the beginning of this meningitis season, twenty sectors (districts having population between 30,000 to 100,000) have exceeded the epidemic threshold (1). Of these, nine sectors are, currently, still over the epidemic threshold. Except in Saleha IDP camp of South Darfur, the predominant epidemic strain of these localized meningococcal meningitis outbreaks in Northern Sudan is Neisseria meningitidis serogroup- A.
Table-1: Meningococcal disease reported from Northern Sudan Epidemiological week -20
|
States
|
New cases reported
during current week
|
New deaths reported
during current week
|
CFR (%)
|
Number of sectors reached/exceeded
alert threshold till the current week
|
Number of sectors reached/exceed
ed epidemic threshold till the current week
|
Cumulative * cases
upto week no 20
|
Cumulative deaths upto
week no 20
|
Overall case fatality
rate
|
| Kahrtoum |
44
|
2
|
4.5%
|
755
|
13
|
1.7%
| ||
| Gezira |
23
|
1
|
4.3%
|
6
|
7
|
440
|
48
|
10.9 %
|
| Sinnar |
0%
|
3
|
4
|
184
|
10
|
5.4%
| ||
| Kassala |
3
|
0%
|
2
|
4
|
125
|
7
|
5.6%
| |
| Gederef |
1
|
0%
|
1
|
2
|
69
|
4
|
5.8%
| |
| Blue Nile |
0%
|
11
|
2
|
18.2%
| ||||
| River Nile |
0%
|
5
|
0%
| |||||
| White Nile |
6
|
0%
|
34
|
0%
| ||||
| South Kordofan |
0%
|
1
|
14
|
4
|
28.6%
| |||
| North Darfur |
0%
|
9
|
0%
| |||||
| South Darfur |
6
|
0%
|
1
|
1
|
127
|
7
|
5.5%
| |
| West Darfur |
3
|
1
|
33.3%
|
17
|
3
|
17.6%
| ||
| North Kordofan |
13
|
0%
|
4
|
2
|
108
|
8
|
7.4%
| |
| Total |
99
|
4
|
4.0%
|
18
|
20
|
1898
|
106
|
5.5 %
|
Source: Daily Epidemiological Bulletin of Federal Ministry of Health, Sudan .* Some cases were reported on a retrospective date..
Note:
(1) Epidemic threshold (used for detecting meningitis outbreak) for districts with a population between 30,000 to 100,000 is 10 cases/100,000 in a week