Across Africa's arid ‘meningitis belt' that runs from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east, thousands have fallen ill and 580 have died from the meningitis virus which hits the region with lethal effect every dry season.

Figures compiled by the World Health Organisation and released on Tuesday show that 5,139 people have been struck by meningitis, of which 580 have died, in the first 10 weeks of 2006.

Some 300 million people live in the worst affected countries that lie in a band across the Sahel region of Africa . Meningitis attacks the brain and spinal chord typically killing between 10 to 20 percent of its victims in Africa , and leaving many survivors deaf.

And the disease spreads fastest and with most deadly effect in the dry season that runs from December to June each year, and every year hundreds and sometimes tens of thousands of people – most of them children – die of meningitis.

Worst affected thus far this year is Burkina Faso , which has recorded 3,237 cases of meningitis plus 399 deaths. WHO along with partners including the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) and Medicines Sans Frontieres have launched a mass vaccination campaign with 1.8 million vaccines.

Also affected, according to WHO, are Cote d'Ivoire , Kenya , Mali , Niger , Sudan and Uganda .

And with three months of the dry season still to go, experts fear the death toll could continue to climb.

Story culled from Irin News