The Director of the Navrongo Health Research Centre, Dr. Patrick Ansah, at the invitation of the Bill and Melinder Gates Foundation, attended the International Pathogenic Neisseria Conference in Boston, USA on the 26th of September 2023 where experts from around the globe gathered to discuss groundbreaking developments in the field of Neisseria Diseases.
Dr. Patrick Ansah presenting at the IPNC 2023 Conference
As part of the conference, a symposium was organized focused on among other relevant issues, the urgent need to reestablish carriage surveys and enhanced disease surveillance in Navrongo, Ghana. This initiative is pivotal as the director emphasized the need for monitoring pneumococcal and meningococcal disease in the Meningitis Belt of Africa, with specific reference to the Northern and parts of the Middle Belts of Ghana.
The Meningitis Belt of Africa has long been grappling with the burden of pneumococcal and meningococcal diseases, posing substantial threats to public health. Carriage surveys and enhanced disease surveillance have historically played a crucial role in early detection, prevention, and control of such diseases. However, over the years, these measures have experienced setbacks.
Navrongo, situated in the Northern part of Ghana and some parts of the Middle Belt of Ghana, has been identified as key target areas for surveillance in Ghana. The proposed reinstatement of comprehensive surveillance measures aims to provide invaluable insights into the prevalence, patterns, and dynamics of pneumococcal and meningococcal diseases to facilitate more effective public health interventions.
THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF MENINGOCOCUS IN GHANA
Africa has the largest burden of bacterial meningitis, bearing approximately half of the 1.2 million annual cases that occur globally. An estimated 450 million people are at-risk within the “meningitis belt” alone which spans twenty-six contiguous countries from West to East Africa.
Ghana reports seasonal cyclical meningitis outbreaks almost every year with an approximate 30 million at risk despite vaccine deployments within the country. The Navrongo Health Research Centre in collaboration with the University College of London and the Ghana Health Service embarked on an epidemiological surveillance of meningitis bacterial pathogens in response to the global health call to defeat meningitis by 2030.
The study was aimed at determining the evolving epidemiology of Neisseria meningitidis (meningococcus), an infectious bacterial pathogen associated with meningitis outbreaks in the Kassena – Nankana districts of Northern Ghana post-MEN A deployment within the country in order to inform vaccination policies for health protection.
A total of 2932 study participants were enrolled and assessed for the carriage of meningococcus. The study showed that carriage of the meningococcus was significantly high within the study population, particularly among young age groups despite vaccine deployment within the country. The study also reported the detection of meningococcal serogroup A, an epidemic strain associated with major outbreaks within the meningitis belt in the pre-MenAfriVac era.
This is quite concerning and emphasizes the need for continual epidemiological surveillance for both disease and carriage; targeting these meningitis pathogens within the northern and middle belts for effective preparedness towards unanticipated outbreaks and to alleviate the likely risk of disease outbreaks by these epidemic strains.
This obviously calls for implementations of robust diagnostic platforms for rapid detection of disease pathogens in order to institute urgent public health response to emergency outbreaks within the country.