Jeffrey Wolf
9News.com
06/23/2010

After Lisa Krizman of Loveland lost her daughter, Sierra, to meningitis in 2007, she started a foundation to bolster awareness of the disease and raise money for vaccination clinics.

Now that Fort Collins Adult Hockey Association players Brian Wormus and Nick Smith have died of invasive meningococcal disease, Krizman is fast-tracking a meningitis vaccination clinic she’s trying to schedule for July.

“If you wait until you do get [meningitis], the chances of you living aren’t good,” she said. “Sierra, when we took her to the doctor, they had no clue what she had until after she was gone.”

The meningitis vaccine, Krizman said, is a $125 insurance policy against the disease, which is spread by saliva and other nose and throat secretions.

Since Wormus died June 14, Krizman said she has received more than 50 calls from people looking to get the vaccine, which her foundation will pay for.

But even though there have been two deaths from the disease in Fort Collins and two others remain hospitalized, the situation isn’t so dire that everyone should rush out to get vaccinated, said Adrienne LeBailly, director of the Larimer County Department of Public Health and Environment.

“Individuals don’t need to do anything immediately for the most part,” she said. “We’ve already treated close contacts (of the affected hockey players) with antibiotics. People need to think at some point whether it’s worth the approximately $125 to be vaccinated versus the extremely low risk that they’ll ever get it.”

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Rachel Ellis
Daily Mail
06/22/2010

Parents have their children vaccinated in the belief it offers vital protection against serious infections. But now there are concerns that the meningitis C vaccine may not be effective during key times in their child’s life.

New research has revealed that within seven years of receiving the jab, three quarters of children are unprotected against meningitis C because the vaccine has worn off.

The study, by scientists from the Oxford Vaccine Group at Oxford University, looked at 250 British children aged six and 12 who had received the vaccine.
Researchers found that only 25 per cent retained sufficiently high levels of the antibodies in their bloodstream to protect them against the disease.

This is worrying, as although babies and toddlers are at highest risk of catching the disease, the next high-risk group is teenagers and young adults.

Meningitis C is an inflammation of the meninges (the layers that surround the brain and the spinal cord), which can cause deafness, blindness, loss of limbs, blood poisoning and death.

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From Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano,
11.01.2009

Pfizer International, the US pharmaceutical company that carried out a meningitis trovan test in 1996 on a number of children in Kano State, has demanded a Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) report as a pre-condition for beneficiaries to draw down on the $75 million judgment  money against it, a retired justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Abubakar Wali, has said.

Speaking at the palace of the Emir of Kano on Friday, Justice Wali, who traced the history of the trovan test, said Pfizer came to Nigeria in 1996 at the peak of the outbreak of meningitis disease in Kano to offer assistance on affected victims. He said, unknown to the government and people of the state,  the company had come to test the drug, which resulted to deforming and killing of many children in the state.

The retired Justice also said his team was  at the palace to seek the guidance of the emir, Alhaji Ado Bayero, as plans were afoot to sensitise the people against coming in to make wrong claims. He assured that “all the victims must undergo DNA test to ensure that the genuine victims benefit from the settlement.”

Justice Wali also told the emir that out of the $75 million judgement money Pfizer agreed to pay, $30 million would go to the victims and their families. Another $30 million would be used to provide health projects in the state, while $10 million  would go for litigations and $5 million used to settle sundry expenses.

Responding, the Emir Bayero explained that he was aware of the task before the committees instituted by the state government to handle both the settlement of compensation to the victims and healthcare issues, as agreed by Pfizer and Kano State government.

Bayero said the Kano State Government had constantly been updating him on any development relating to the Pfizer case and commended the government for leading the litigations initially started by the families of victims. He said such an effort had yielded positive results.

According to him, “ I have to commend the efforts of the government in ensuring that justice is done, through the out of court agreement, what I want people to do now is since the monies will be provided soon for settlement of the victims or their families, modalities should be followed to the last letter so that only the affected families benefit”.

He advised that the  people should be aware of the modalities to be followed in taking the claims; as such all claimants should be honest because the calibre of persons in the two boards would not in any way allow abnormalities.

He cautioned pharmaceutical companies worldwide to conform to the ethics and avoid testing animal drugs and vaccines on human beings. He said that what happened in Kano in 1996, in which hundreds of children were reported dead or deformed through the application of meningitis trovan test drugs was a great lesson to the whole world.
Other members of the settlement team that accompanied Wali to the palace were Justice S. M Balgore (rtd), Professor Isa Hashim, Dr Musa Borodo, Professor Mutassir Ibrahim and Dr Prosper Igboli.

Besides, Wali said the state government had also instituted a healthcare board under  Professor Shehu Ahmed Sa’id Galadanchi as chairman to fast track the implementation of government’s action plan arising from the Pfizer case.

Other members of the board are Professor Auwalu Hamisu Yadudu, Architect Ibrahim Haruna and  Dr. Habibu Sadauki, Alhaji Adamu Aliyu Kiyawa and Alhaji Adamu Jafiya Both  boards, Wali said, have Mr. David Odiwo and Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim of the SSG office as secretary and assistant secretary respectively.

Kano State Government on July 30 formally signed an agreement with Pfizer over the controversial drug trial. The out-of-court settlement in the multi-billion-dollar suit against Pfizer, in the three-year drug test in the state, came after years of litigation.

“We have settled and we are signing an agreement , Kano State government has finally reached a $75 million settlement agreement with Pfizer Pharmaceutical Company, over the 1996 Trovan test in the state,” said Aliyu Umar, counsel for Kano State government, had said then.

Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, had said he was in London with leader of the Trovan test victims’ chairman, the State Attorney-General, and the State Commissioner for Health to finalise agreement and work out modalities with Pfizer executives on how the money would be shared. He said the full payment might take up to 2011.