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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jun 8 (IPS) — Doctors in this capital city are doing a roaring black market trade in vaccinations for meningitis following last week's Health Ministry announcement that there is an epidemic of the disease in several regions of the country.

People in Port-au-Prince are hurrying en masse to be vaccinated or to have their children protected, for the young are considered the most susceptible to meningococcemy.

According to medical specialists, this especially virulent form of meningitis can cause death if it is not detected within 24 hours. Symptoms are a high fever, skin eruptions, feeling generally ill, headaches, vomiting, convulsions and pains in the joints of the limbs.

Seizing on the panic to earn additional income, doctors here in the city have started a black market in the vaccine recommended as a preventative. A bottle containing 10 doses of the vaccine, which normally costs four U.S. dollars at the drugstore, is no longer available on the formal market.

Doctors now demand that patients pay as much as 10 dollars per dose. Those who can pay this price and who have succeeded in being vaccinated despite the rush consider themselves lucky.

Some companies are taking responsibility for their staff by launching their own vaccination campaign at work.

But for those who are neither employed by these companies nor wealthy enough to afford the black market rate for the drug, there is very little they can do.

The vaccine cannot be had just anywhere, but the Health Ministry has assured the public that those who have caught the disease will get free medical attention.

''I've heard talk of this sickness but I've no information about it. I've got no money so I can't pay to be vaccinated, says Rene, a house-boy earning 40 dollars a month.

Girot is a messenger in a non-governmental organisation, and for the past few days he has searched in vain for a clinic where he can be vaccinated free of charge.

''I've got no money to pay for the vaccine, so I'm going to die,'' he says.

The Health Ministry appears mildly surprised by the alarm its announcement has caused.

''I wonder why so many people are hurrying to be vaccinated. There are not many recent cases. The epidemic is under control. The situation is being abused by members of the medical profession, who are administering this vaccine at exorbitant prices,'' declared Dr. Jean Andre, director general of the Ministry of Health.

The first 50 cases of meningococcemy were identified in April 1994 in the frontier town of Ouanaminthe in northeastern Haiti, 54 kms from Cap-Haitien, the second largest city of this Caribbean Republic.

Some ten persons in the northeast died in three months after contracting the disease. At the time, public health officials had attributed the epidemic to bad sanitary conditions.

Since last April, 18 cases of meningococcemy have been registeredin this city of 1.6 million persons. (END/IPS/IMC/DA/95)

Origin: Kingston/HAITI/

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[c] 1994, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

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