NIGER’S seasonal meningitis epidemic, which has killed over 1000 people so far this year, slowed in September, official figures showed. Some 35 new cases of meningitis were reported in September, down from 56 new cases in August, although the death toll rose to seven in September from five the previous month. At least 1016 people have died from meningitis so far this year, out of a total of 13 958 reported cases. Meningitis strikes hardest in the early months of the year across Africa’s arid Sahel region. In 1999 the disease killed 488 people, up from 301 in 1998. The highest toll in recent years was in 1995, when around 3000 people died in an epidemic blamed on faulty vaccine imported from neighbouring Nigeria. – Reuters