Serogroup A Neisseria meningitidis outside Meningitis Belt in Southwest Cameroon

摘要

To the Editor: Epidemic meningi-tis associated with serogroup ANeisseria meningitidis is a devastat-ing disease in the absence of vaccina-tion (1). Without treatment, the case-fatality rate is high, approaching100%. In Africa, such epidemicsoccur regularly (1) within a well-lim-ited geographic zone, the so-called var currentpos,timer; function initialize() { timer=setInterval("scrollwindow()",10);} function sc(){clearInterval(timer); }function scrollwindow() { currentpos=document.body.scrollTop; window.scroll(0,++currentpos); if (currentpos != document.body.scrollTop) sc();} document.onmousedown=scdocument.ondblclick=initialize1352Emerging Infectious Diseases . Vol. 9, No. 10, October 2003LETTERSAfrican meningitis belt (2). In thecountries within the meningitis belt,the illness is endemic and sporadic:numerous cases of meningococcalmeningitis are reported each year dur-ing the dry season, and every 6–12years a large outbreak occurs.Serogroup A N. meningitidis alsocauses sporadic cases of meningitisoutside the meningitis belt, account-ing for 10% to 30% of cases withidentified causes (1,3). Outbreaksmay also occur outside of the belt, butthey do not exhibit the same epidemi-ologic aspects. We report an epidemicof meningococcal meningitis in theSouth-West Province of Cameroon(~500 km south of the African menin-gitis belt and 350 km east of Yaoundé,the country's capital), involving 61cases and 13 (21%) deaths