Meningitis: the spectrum of surendémie away in Seine-Maritime

Written by Sandeep Nehra

Seine-Maritime, which was facing a surendémie of meningococcal disease, found a situation close to normal in recent months, thanks to a massive vaccination campaign, according to medical sources.

“The department, who led France to the incidence of these infections, fell to sixth place as the national epidemiological bulletin,” said Dr. Jean-Philippe Leroy, coordinator of the vaccination campaign launched in the Dieppe area where surendémie was particularly pronounced.

This doctor, however, requires “not complacent” in pursuing vaccination against these infections that may take the form of meningitis fulminating. “The strain is still prevalent and a reversal may occur, taking advantage of little things,” put it on hold.

Similarly Micheline Hornung, a Dieppoise who lost a child of this infection and who chairs an association of family support, wants conservative. “We are pleased that we are in improvement, but it is too early to rest on the achievements,” she said.

Progress since the beginnings of surendémie, appeared in 2003 for reasons yet unknown, however, seem very clear. In this department, the incidence of these infections had become almost three times higher than the national average. In 2008, 49 cases had been identified five deaths while in 2010 their number dropped to 14 and no deaths were especially deplorable.

Dr. Leroy tempers these results by noting that the decline everywhere in France could be partly “cyclical” because it coincides with a fall in the number of flu. “The year has been quiet for the flu and we know that there is a temporal relationship between quantitative and meningococcal disease and influenza,” he says.

But he believes that vaccination started in Dieppe and the region in 2006 and enlarged a portion of the Somme in 2009 contributed to the “sharp decline” even though she was not the sole cause. “The decline has been very, very clear from the moment it was widely vaccinated,” says he.

The campaign is committed to fight against a particularly virulent strain of Type B, known as “B: 14: P1-7, 16″, causing 80% of cases in the Dieppe area. In total, some 50,000 people aged two months to 19 years, 60 to 70% of the population informed, have already received three or four doses.

But the campaign, which aims to vaccinate all children forward and teens in Seine-Maritime, has been slow to implement due to the lack of real industrial production of the vaccine. This is currently provided by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, who had faced the same surendémie in the 1980s.

But its capacity is reduced and the French health authorities have great expectations of another vaccine, developed by the Swiss laboratory Novartis, just ask for approval in Europe. This would cover over 70% of meningococcal type B and not only the “B: 14: P1-7, 16″, the Norwegian unique target.

But it will not be available until late 2012, according to Dr. Leroy, and by then France will continue to do so with only 100,000 doses given annually by the Norwegian institute. “These are stocks that quotas should distribute very sparingly and wisely,” he said.

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