In recent weeks, there has been a surge in meningitis cases in Halabjah City and Sulaymaniyah governorate in Iraq, leading the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health to deploy an expert team to investigate and develop a response plan to curb the transmission of the disease.

Preliminary laboratory results from collected samples showed a mixture of bacterial and viral meningitis, with the majority of cases occurring in school-aged children, and males being affected twice as often as females.

While no deaths have been reported so far, the epidemic's epicenter is located in the center of Halabja and nearby Serwan City, and the upward trend in cases is still ongoing.

Health care professionals have been working tirelessly to treat patients, but challenges such as a critical shortage of staff, essential medicines, and supplies have been observed in both hospitals.

To quickly scale up frontline response capacities, WHO will organize a multidisciplinary training on meningitis for surveillance staff, health care professionals, and laboratory technicians in Halabja and Sulaymaniyah during the week of 21 May 2023.

Depending on the identified causal pathogen, response strategies may include a pneumococcal vaccination campaign for children, adherence to infection prevention control measures, and enhancing community education and awareness.

The WHO is taking prompt actions by enhancing surveillance, data collection, and laboratory capacity for case management, and has ordered rapid diagnostic test kits for meningitis to facilitate the timely identification of causal pathogens and enable prompt public health action.

Dr Ahmed Zouiten, WHO Representative in Iraq, stressed the need for swift action to detect, confirm, and treat cases to effectively curve the transmission and control the outbreak.

Dr Riyadh Al-Hilfi, Director-General of the Public Health Directorate in the Ministry of Health, assured that their current priority is to curtail the spread of the meningitis outbreak and deliver urgent and effective care to those affected.