A court in Burkina Faso has sentenced a woman to the maximum term of three years in jail for carrying out genital mutilation on 16 girls aged between 2 and 10, court officials said on September 22nd. Campaigners trying to end female circumcision, which is widespread in many African countries, welcomed the sentence and said they hoped it would act as a deterrent to others.

The arrest this week of a 63-year-old woman in Burkina Faso accused of circumcising 16 young girls has brought home to many that genital mutilation is still widespread in the west African state, despite being outlawed eight years ago. Since 1996, when the landlocked state formally declared genital mutilation illegal, the number of excisions practised in Burkina has fallen sharply, from a prevalence rate of 66 percent to 40 percent, according to the national watchdog group, the CNLPE.

Health officials began a drive to vaccinate the population of Bobo Dioulasso against yellow fever at the weekend after four cases of the disease were confirmed in Burkina Faso's second largest city earlier this year. Officials said the vaccination campaign kicked off on Saturday. It was expected to last five days and cover about 840,000 people in and around the city, they added.