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 Barely five years after the team began rolling out a tailor-made
vaccine in Africa's "meningitis belt", the disease has all but
disappeared there and the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) is
closing down after pioneering what may be a model for tackling
infectious diseases in developing countries.
"We have not seen a single case among vaccinated populations ...,"
said Marie Pierre-Preziosi, MVP's director, "and transmission has
stopped."
The tale of MenAfriVac, made by Serum Institute of India and costing
just 50 U.S. cents a shot, elicits hopeful comparisons with the
current rush to develop a vaccine against Ebola:
A deadly disease needed tackling quickly at a price affordable to
some of the world's poorest people; a committed group of scientists,
drugmakers and philanthropists got together and developed a cheap,
simple vaccine specifically for Africans; it was tested, trialled
and deployed in record time; and in a matter of years, thousands of
lives have been saved.
On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) authorised MenAfriVac
for use in routine child immunizations in Africa, establishing it as
part of everyday healthcare and bringing an end into sight for a
disease that has plagued Africa for more than a century.
BRAIN DAMAGE AND DEATH
Before MenAfriVac's introduction in 2010, people in a belt
stretching from Senegal to Ethiopia were regularly afflicted by
epidemics of the 'A' strain of meningitis.
Meningococcal meningitis infects the thin lining surrounding the
brain and spinal cord. It can cause severe brain damage, deafness,
epilepsy or necrosis and, if untreated, is fatal in 50 percent of
cases.
One of Africa's worst recorded outbreaks was in 1996-97, when some
250,000 were infected and more than 25,000 died in a few months.
An epidemic in Nigeria in 2008-09 saw 56,000 cases, almost three
times the current total of Ebola cases in West Africa.
Yet five years on, meningitis A is rare in Africa. Jean-Marie
Okwo-Bele, director of the WHO's immunisation department, called the
introduction of MenAfriVac a "stunning success".
In 2010, he told a briefing of the "fear in the population" during
seasonal outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying: "You
can see empty streets because people are so afraid to be in contact
with each other."
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CHEAPER AND BETTER
Back then, the available meningitis vaccines were broad-spectrum,
targeting four strains, A, C, Y and W-135. They were also expensive,
so in Africa were generally limited to emergency immunisation
campaigns that were often too little, too late.
So African leaders urged global health experts to make something
better - a vaccine costing no more than 50 U.S. cents that could
specifically protect against the meningitis A that was claiming so
many lives.
"African health officials told us: 'Don't come with a vaccine we
cannot afford, because that would not be a solution'," Pierre-Preziosi
said.
In record time, with focused drug research, committed partnerships
and funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, MVP bypassed
big pharma firms and approached a cheaper generic drugmaker, Serum
Institute of India, to develop a monovalent, or single-strain,
meningitis A shot.
It is the first vaccine made specifically for Africa, and the first
not to need constant refrigeration, allowing it to be transported to
remote areas in hot regions.
Since being introduced in Burkina Faso in 2010, it has been given to
215 million people across Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Ivory Coast,
Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan,
Togo and Gambia.
MVP's website features a valedictory film clip.
"It's quite short," says Pierre-Preziosi. "But in it, you will see
the meningitis belt disappear."
(Reporting by Kate Kelland, Editing by Kevin Liffey)
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