VARIATION OF THE OCCURRENCE OF MENINGOCOCCAL MENINGITIS IN KADUNA STATE BETWEEN THE PERIOD OF 1999 TO 2003

Abstract

Meningococcal meningitis disease is a contagious disease caused by the meningococcus (Neisseria meningitides), a gram-negative bacterium. Meningitis epidemics can occur in any part of the world, but the largest occur mainly in the semi-arid areas of sub-saharan Africa, known as the African Meningitis belt. The aim of this study is to describe the variation of the occurrence of meningococcal meningitis within the different months of the year for each of the twenty three local government of Kaduna state of Nigeria, and for a five year period. All the recorded cases of the occurrence of the meningococcal meningitis for the five year period was collected from the Health departments of each of the local government and also from the Kaduna state epidemiology unit. Descriptive statistics was used to show the variations of the occurrence on a bar chart and coefficient of variation was also determined. The results show that the occurrence was more in the early part of the year (January to May), the peak period is between March and April. The coefficient of variation shows that except in a few of the LGAs including Zaria (28.04%), Kudan (30%), Soba (36.49%), Kaduna North (39.52%), Makarfi (43.6%), high variability of well over 50% are recorded in the local government areas. The occurrence of Meningococcal meningitis is much more severe in first five months of the year. Except for few local governments, there is a lot of variation in the occurrence of the disease.