Managing an outbreak of cerebrospinal meningitis in Zamfara State, 6^th to 25^th May, 2017

Introduction: the 2016/2017 Cerebrospinal meningitis (CSM) outbreak in Nigeria was first reported on 13th December 2016 in Zamfara State. This outbreak was caused predominantly by Neisseria meningitis sero group C (NmC). As at the 3rd of May 2017, Zamfara State reported 6,400 suspected cases with 503 deaths and a case fatality rate (CFR) of 7.9%. There was a limited amount of NmC vaccine globally to conduct reactive vaccination. The state also has inadequate health-care workers (HCWs) especially doctors to conduct a lumbar puncture (LP) for diagnosis and treatment. The CSF collection rate was about 5.0% (343 samples were collected). Based on this, the National Cerebrospinal Meningitis Emergency Operations Centre (CSM EOC) deployed 28 health workers consisting of doctors, nurses and data managers to improve case management and active case search from 6th to 25th May, 2017.