It is now obvious that the scourge of Meningitis has become an annual epidemic in Nigeria.

The figures from the many states where the disease has manifested, point to a picture of death and pain. Almost a hundred people are said to have died of the disease, with the highest death toll of 54 persons coming from Maiduguri, Borno state. Other high death tolls include Kano, 21 people and Gombe, 14. In all, about 2000 cases have been recorded in Gombe, Kano, Borno, Yobe, Jigawa and Kaduna states.

What is more disturbing about the Meningitis outbreak, this year, is the fact that it has spread outside the areas traditionally known as the 'Meningitis Belt' to include areas where the disease did not use to manifest. According to health experts this current scourge has led to cases in Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, and Cross River states. Even before its threat to become a national disease, the re-current outbreak of Meningitis in the North should have been a huge cause for concern to our federal health authorities.

The government ought to be preparing for it annually, since it is an illness whose causes and season of outbreak are well-known. An emphasis on prevention through a well-coordinated enlightenment campaign could have saved many of those currently groaning in pain over the neck-stiffing scourge. The current efforts of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to contain the epidemic in the North-East would have made greater impact if it had come earlier, by way of a preventive campaign.

Governors of states within the traditional Meningitis zone should have come together since the initial outbreak in November, last year and synergized towards a combined effort to fight its spread. To this end, they could have embarked on immediate immunization exercises in all communities prone to the outbreak. Apart from giving the all-important advice on sleeping in an airy environment and stopping overcrowding in rooms, a special clean up campaign should have been embarked upon by these states. Sanitation exercises in order to rid our dirty streets of their never-ending rubbish heaps and fetid gutters should have been a priority of the states' health and environment ministries.

As an air and water- borne disease, Meningitis will certainly find a fertile breeding ground in dirt, a factor which is not in short supply all over the country. With our inability to stop it before it struck, we are left with no option but to try and contain the scourge before it spreads too far. Towards containment, the federal government must make the vaccines available for general immunization so that both communities where the disease has manifested and where it has not will be immunized against it.

Already in Kano state, where 278 cases were recorded in 28 out of its 44 local governments, the critical problem facing health workers is shortage of necessary vaccines from the federal ministry of health. The Minister of Health should note this and send the needed supplies with dispatch. More and more health workers should be trained to diagnose the various type of Meningitis and know the appropriate treatment for each. Correct diagnosis can lesson the pain of the disease on patients and hopefully also limit fatalities.

In the meantime, there is the urgent need to start a massive media campaign to enlighten people on ways to guard against contracting the disease. Radio and television jingles should urge people to avoid overcrowding, practice personal hygiene, boil water before drinking and be familiar with the earliest symptoms of Meningitis. They should be told to immediately seek medical attention when these symptoms are noticed. In babies and little children where the symptoms may resemble other childhood diseases, mothers should be told to take any serious symptom on their infants to the hospital.

While hoping that all hands will be on deck to deal with the current Meningitis epidemic, Daily Trust advises both federal and state governments to, in future, take necessary measures to prevent another outbreak of the disease rather than run helter-skelter trying to treat an epidemic.