Meningitis: A dreadful disease

Last few days one of my colleagues was not coming to office. When I tried to find the reason, came to know that her son is suffering from Meningitis!

The boy was completely senseless when admitted to hospital. He was in ICU for three days. After three days, he only could talk and his rest of the body parts were inactive. Doctors said, it will take another one month to recover fully if the child is lucky enough.

I heard the name of this disease earlier but was not quite familiar about the symptoms and the consequence of this disease.

I took the help of Wikipedia and it was like below-

Meningitis is an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The most common symptoms are fever, headache, and neck stiffness. Other symptoms include confusion or altered consciousness, vomiting, and an inability to tolerate light or loud noises. Young children often exhibit only nonspecific symptoms, such as irritability, drowsiness, or poor feeding.

This disease is dangerous because the virus or bacteria attack directly to the brain and spinal cord.

Children are more vulnerable to suffer from this disease. If you find any of the above mentioned symptoms to the victims, need to take to the hospital immediately.

Antibiotics and immunization are available to fight against this disease. But need to bear in mind that any kind of delay can lead to death.

Below information from Wikipedia will let you know the number of victims due to this dreadful disease-

In 2015 meningitis occurred in about 8.7 million people worldwide. This resulted in 379,000 deaths – down from 464,000 deaths in 1990. With appropriate treatment the risk of death in bacterial meningitis is less than 15%

Another important thing is- the treatment of this disease is most costly. It is very difficult to bear the cost for the poor class people. As a part of the treatment, it is costing around 800 USD per injection every day of that boy who is currently suffering from this disease.

As you already aware that the cause of this disease is mainly from virus or bacteria, we can do very little to prevent it. Only we can take vaccines as a preventative measure. But so far I know, vaccines don’t always ensure the complete prevention. The most important measure is the awareness. Don’t consider any of the meningitis symptoms lightly specially the high fever.

Thanks for stopping by.
Image Source