Huambo — Meningitis has killed at least 70 people in Angola's central Huambo province, since January, a health official said.

Ribeiro Isaias, Head of the hygiene and epidemiology section of the province's Health Services, said the main victims were people under age 45.

He disclosed that over the same period, several medical centres in the province treated 376 cases of the epidemic.

According to Isaias, the Caala municipality, some 23-km from Huambo, the province's chief-town, is the worst affected, recording about 75 percent of the afflictions.

He said a total of 834 people also died at the Huambo hospital over the same period from various diseases, including malaria, acute diarrhoea and respiratory complications.