Nigeria become the first country to receive the new MenFive meningitis vaccine from the Vaccine Alliance-funded global stockpile, which was provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund.
This was announced in a press statement by Gavi on Thursday.
According to the World Health Organisation, meningitis is spread from person to person via respiratory and throat secretions. It is an infection of the meninges, the thin membrane that protects the brain and spinal cord.
Hearing loss, brain damage, convulsions, limb loss, or other disabilities, as well as death, have been linked to the condition, which can also be caused by viruses, fungi, or parasitic infections.
The African meningitis belt runs from Senegal to Ethiopia (26 nations), including Nigeria’s northern region.
Meningitis in these countries has a seasonal pattern, with the dry season (December to June) being the most common, with a peak between March and April when there is persistent low air humidity and high dust loads, which are thought to damage the pharyngeal mucosa and facilitate meningococci colonisation of the nasopharyngeal epithelium.
According to the announcement, the vaccine doses will be used to respond to an ongoing meningococcus C outbreak in Jigawa state, with the goal of vaccinating around a million children in six local government areas: Babura, Birniwa, Gagarawa, Gumel, Maigatari, and Sule Tankarkar.
The MenFive vaccine, developed over a 13-year period by PATH and the Serum Institute of India with support from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, gained WHO prequalification in July 2023. The vaccination protects against the five major serogroups of meningococcal meningitis that affect Africa: serogroups A, C, W, Y, and X. It is the only vaccine that is effective against serogroup X.
As of the end of 2023, 16 nations had accessed the global meningococcal vaccination stockpile 62 times since 2009, with more than 29 million doses distributed to support countries.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, funds worldwide vaccine stocks against cholera, Ebola, meningitis, and yellow fever, as well as outbreak response activities in low-income countries.
“The WHO’s International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision manages country requests for these stockpiles.
“The ICG approved the deployment of 1,043,377 doses of MenFive in response to Nigeria’s request,” according to the press release.
Dr. Tokunbo Oshin, Director of High Impact Countries at Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, commented on the achievements, saying, “With infectious disease outbreaks on the rise around the world, new innovations like MenFive are critical in helping us fight back.”
“Thanks to vaccines, we have eliminated large and disruptive outbreaks of meningitis A in Africa: now we have a tool to respond to other meningococcal meningitis serogroups that still cause large outbreaks resulting in long-term disability and deaths.
“Gavi will be working closely with the Nigerian government as well as our partners such as UNICEF and WHO to support the response to this outbreak.”
Gavi added that this first shipment signals the start of its support for a multivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine programme, which will see the MenFive vaccine rolled out through outbreak response, routine immunisation, and catch-up campaigns in high-risk countries.
“Over the years, Gavi has worked with countries to support vaccination against meningitis A, reaching nearly 400 million children through campaigns and routine immunisation. These efforts have helped Africa defeat meningitis A, with no new cases detected since 2017.
“The addition of MenFive into health systems’ toolkit holds out the possibility that the other circulating serogroups could also one day be defeated,” it said.