What we should know to protect our loved ones!

http://www.cdc.gov/meningitis/viral/viral-faqs.htm

Posted: March 17th, 2009 under Diseases, Meningitis.
Comments: none

The death of a 12-year-old boy from a tooth infection — which spread to his brain – has sparked outrage and forced the state of Maryland to launch a new, public health project.

Family, friends, and even some public health officials gathered yesterday at the school he attended to announce the Deamonte Driver Dental Project, which will bring a mobile dental office to needy children at elementary schools in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.

The boy died from a tooth infection that spread to his brain in February 2007 after his mother could not find a dentist to treat his infectious illness.

Maryland Office of Oral Health Director Harry Goodman says Driver’s death spurred officials to act.

The project’s director, Dr. Hazell Harper, says the goal is to serve about 2,000 students at nine schools in the first school year.

The state has given Prince George’s County more than $288,000 to fund the first year of the project.

Driver’s mom, Alyce, who has just graduated from the dental assistant program at Prince George’s Community College, did not speak at the ceremony, but she was moved tears.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

Posted: November 14th, 2008 under Developing Diseases, Impaired Immunity, Meningitis.
Comments: none

A student hospitalized with meningitis has the less severe viral form of the infection as well as the flu, officials with the Fort Bend school district in Texas said.

Meningitis is a swelling of the membranes spinal cord and the brain.

Viral meningitis is relatively mild, and usually clears up on its own and is rarely fatal. Meningitis may lead to brain damage or death without immediate treatment, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both types of the disease are contagious.

The 10th-grade boy who was stricken went to the hospital over the weekend. Fort Bend Independent School District officials were notified this week that he was being tested for meningitis, said spokeswoman Nancy Porter.

Dulles high school officials sent a letter to parents, when the meningitis was confirmed, saying that six other students and several staff members in close contact with the teen had been notified about their risk of infection.

The boy remains hospitalized, and is “recovering well, and anxious to get back to his studies,” Porter said.

Both viral and bacterial meningitis cause high fever, headache, lethargy, vomiting, nausea and stiff neck.

The meningitis vaccine only protects against some strains of the bacterial infection, experts tell Infection Protection & Control.

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director, and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

The meninges of the spine and brain.

Posted: November 13th, 2008 under Diseases, Meningitis.
Comments: none

A number of middle Tennesseans are claiming that they have Lyme disease. But the medical community there is not recognizing their disease state.

Lyme disease is contracted through tick bites. The consensus of the medical community is that Lyme disease is almost impossible to contract in middle Tennessee. Doctors there say that Lyme disease only happens in other parts of the country.

William Shaffner is a nationally recognized expert in infectious disease who said that Lyme can cause real complications if untreated — even meningitis, a severe spinal infection.

There is no evidence, he said, that anyone in middle Tennessee has ever contracted Lyme disease in middle Tennessee.

Shaffner said that unreliable labs have given people incorrect diagnoses.

But, local resident Sara Schell told the news media there she got Lyme disease from a tick bite in Brentwood in 2005, and Krista Sherrod also told reporters she was infected with Lyme disease from a tick bite at a picnic in Fairview.

“I really felt like I was dying,” said Schell. “My brain was numb and cold and felt like a bowling ball. I had a rash all over me.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director and Nancy Bruening, Executive Editor

The tell-tale sign of a Lyme disease infection.

Posted: October 20th, 2008 under Diseases, Lyme disease, Meningitis.
Comments: none

A new report by the New Zealand Department of Labor indicates that a scientist who contracted meningococcal disease while working at an Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) laboratory probably contracted the disease from the laboratory in the course of her work. The doctor’s name is Jeannette Adu-Bobie.

Dr. Adu-Bobie, a visiting specialist working at the Meningitis Vaccine Antibody Testing Laboratory at ESR Kenepuru, apparently contracted Neisseria meningitis in March 2005. Department of Labor Chief Adviser Occupational Health Dr. Geraint Emrys reviewed the department’s original investigation, which concluded it was “extremely unlikely” Dr. Adu-Bobie was infected at the ESR laboratory. That report was incorrect.

In a report released las week, Dr. Emrys said that, like the original investigators he was unable to identify exactly how Dr. Adu-Bobie was infected or find any faults with ESR’s safety systems that could have led to the infection. “ESR’s safety systems conform to international best practice and no failure of these systems has been identified.”

– by Gene J. Koprowski, Editorial Director

Posted: August 4th, 2008 under Diseases, Meningitis.
Comments: none

A new concern is emerging in medicine — infection protection and control in dental office waiting rooms.

The Organization for Safety and Asepsis Procedures addresses the topic in its May issue in a feature entitled, “The Reception Room” is a feature in the May issue of the OSAP’s association publication Infection Control in Practice.

The article is aimed at helping dental professionals recognize sites in the reception room that need constant attention with regard to cleanliness and infection control, and is the second installment of a new series on compartmentalizing infection control policies and procedures.

Patients, caregivers and the the dental team are all at risk of infection in the waiting room. The article reports that there are new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as to how to control infection in the reception area, and provide disease prevention information for patients.

– by The Editors

The dental office — next place where MRSA will flourish?

Posted: June 4th, 2008 under Diseases, Herpes-Cold Sores, Influenza, Meningitis, Mumps, Norwalk-Like Viruses, Pneumonia, Rubella.
Comments: none

A new vaccine, called MenB, is showing promising results in clinical trials by pharma company Novartis. But doctors cautioned there is still much more research to be done before it can be commercialized. The therapy was tested on 150 babies in the U.K.

Meningitis is an inflammation of the membranes of the brain and the spinal cord.

Doctors regularly immunize babies against Hib, pneumococcol, and meningitis C during their first year of life.

But there is no vaccination yet for meningitis B, which causes most cases, doctors say.

Scientists examined 85 strains of meningitis B while developing the potential vaccine.

The vaccine contains antigens - bacterial proteins — that are found in the meningitis B strains responsible for the disease.

Dr. Ray Borrow, director of the vaccine evaluation department at Manchester Royal Infirmary, said, “the preliminary results tell us that the vaccine is likely to kill strains that contain the vaccine’s antigens.”

Professor David Salisbury, director of immunization at the U.K. Department of Health, said this is a heartening development for medicine.

“We have vaccinations against three of the four causes of bacterial meningitis. The one we have been waiting for is meningitis B. It has been a challenge for the past 20 years,” Dr. Salisbury said.

– by The Editors

Posted: May 15th, 2008 under Diseases, Meningitis.
Comments: 1