Chad’s Health Minister Ngombaye Djaibe has said that meningitis has reached epidemic proportions in the poor, arid Central African nation, with 871 recorded cases of meningitis and 102 deaths due to the disease. Meningitis is an infectious disease that causes inflammation in the brain or the spinal cord area resulting in high fever, severe headaches, nausea and stiff neck or pain in the neck. If the infection is very virulent it can lead to the patient’s coma and death. Vaccination can prevent meningitis. Countries in Western and central Africa, mainly Nigeria, have been reeling under the epidemic of gigantic proportions for a longtime.