Burkina Faso's government and education experts hope that the introduction of bilingual schools that teach pupils in both French and their mother tongue would increase school enrolment that are often as low as 12 percent in rural areas.

An outbreak of meningitis in Burkina Faso that has killed over 1,000 people since October, has shown signs of declining, health officials told IRIN last Thursday.

Despite pleas last October to prepare for a serious outbreak of bacterial meningitis, public health officials are scrambling to halt a mounting epidemic in Burkina Faso. Public health officials will be forced to ration the limited supply in a way that saves as many lives as possible, and WHO officials are now trying to figure out how best to distribute the available doses of vaccine.

Meningitis has killed 401 people out of 2433 cases in Burkina Faso since the beginning of the 2002-2003 meningitis season in late October, Souleymane Sanou, head of meningitis control in the health ministry said last week.