<div><p>A fresh outbreak of meningitis has killed at least 58 people in northern Nigeria since the start of the year, health officials said on Tuesday.</p><p>The most affected states are Gombe, Bauchi and Katsina, the officials said.</p><p>"We have recorded 22 deaths in the last two weeks following a resurgence of an outbreak of meningitis which infected 357 people in Gombe state," health commissioner Muhammad Isa Umar told AFP.</p><p>Eleven other people died in Gombe in January, he added.</p><p>In neighbouring Bauchi State, 10 out of the 200 people who contracted the disease in the last two weeks have died, according to Habu Dahiru, a doctor with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in the state.</p><p>Last month, Nigerian health authorities placed the northern part of the country on a state of high alert following a meningitis outbreak in the town of Zinder in neighbouring Republic of Niger.</p><p>Within days, Katsina state, which is closest to Zinder, recorded its first cases.</p><p>"At least 15 deaths were reported of meningitis which has infected over 200 people across the (Katsina) state since February," a health official told AFP.</p><p>Kano, the largest state in the north, has since December recorded 30 deaths out of 50 cases, Kano's chief epidemiologist Muhammad Nasir Mahmud told AFP.</p><p>Ten people died in a meningitis outbreak that affected more than 300 people in neighbouring Jigawa state towards the end of 2008, state health commissioner Tafida Abubakar said.</p><p>Meningitis is highly contagious and initial symptoms include a high fever, severe headaches, vomiting and neck stiffness.</p><p>Nigeria lies on the sub-Saharan "meningitis belt" that stretches from Senegal on the Atlantic coast to Ethiopia in the east.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=44095670&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

Copyright 2009  <a href="http://www.afp.com/english/links/?pid=copyright">AFP Global Edition</a></div></div>