hi I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’ll be
learning more about meningitis so what
is meningitis exactly meningitis is one
of the most severe infections that
occurs throughout our life it’s an
infection of the envelope that surrounds
the brain and the spinal cord are there
different types the two main types that
we see are the viral meningitis and
those are seen more in the summertime
and they tend to be less severe as a
group and there’s a bacterial meningitis
which are much more severe and the
consequences are much more present long
term for the kids or the adults who get
this infection how common is meningitis
we’ve had a lot of successes in the past
with vaccines preventing the more common
types there’s one type that persists
called meningococcal meningitis and
these occur about about 300 kids or
adults per year in Canada
how is meningitis transmitted meningitis
is really bad luck when it happens to
individual it’s transferred from person
to person
and it’s true droplets we say so if you
cough and you spray some very small
droplets the bacteria can be transported
and aspirated in the other person in
front of you so it’s through these
droplets or through sharing a glass or
older kids or adults a cigarette they
can get it from that who would you say
is most at risk of contracting
meningitis it’s really children under
five especially under one and older
teenagers and young adults are also at
risk and the university population of
kids is also a group that has been noted
as being at risk for this type of
meningitis what are some signs and
symptoms that we should look out for so
the symptoms of meningitis initially can
look like the flu where children or
adults will have a fever that they may
have headache and they may vomit and
they feel achy all over so those are the
initial symptoms as the disease
progresses the more typical symptoms of
a stiffness of the neck have becoming
very lethargic and tired the headache
becomes more severe some individuals may
go on to have convulsions and so those
are the typical symptoms for me
joyas I read something about a rash so
with meningococcal meningitis you can
also have rashes that appear and these
look like bruises so initially when you
have one you think maybe I Britt was
myself but then they can spread all over
the body and they can look quite angry
and it looks like a red purplish bruise
what is the typical incubation period
the incubation period from having been
exposed to getting the disease is
usually less than a week tell us about
some of the short and long-term effects
of this illness for meningococcal
meningitis which is like I say the most
common one that we see at ten percent of
individuals who have this meningitis
will die and these tend to die within 24
to 48 hours of the onset of the disease
so it’s a very aggressive disease of the
survivors 10 to 20 percent will have
long-term sequelae and these include
neurological problems such as being
paralyzed becoming deaf having seizure
disorders people will have school
problems attention problems mental
problems behavior problems so those are
the neurological problem that can follow
meningitis some individuals will also
lose a limb from having had meningitis
because of the poor circulation
throughout the body associated with this
type of meningitis what are the
preventive measures we can take to avoid
meningitis the only prevention that we
have is to vaccination and there have
been vaccinations that have been made
available to the population in the past
and there are new ones that are will be
coming which will protect us against the
more common meningitis that we see today
and what about treatment options
treatment is passed medical care
intravenous antibiotics usually you end
up in intensive care at a hospital but
even with all of those treatments there
still is 10% death and 10 to 20% of
long-term sequelae so again the best
treatment is to prevent it and the
vaccines do a good job with that and are
if have been shown to be safe if you get
meningitis once can you get it again yes
so you can get more than once in your
life so I mean had it once doesn’t
protect you from getting it again
great thank you very much thank you
watchmojo.com and today we’ll be
learning more about meningitis so what
is meningitis exactly meningitis is one
of the most severe infections that
occurs throughout our life it’s an
infection of the envelope that surrounds
the brain and the spinal cord are there
different types the two main types that
we see are the viral meningitis and
those are seen more in the summertime
and they tend to be less severe as a
group and there’s a bacterial meningitis
which are much more severe and the
consequences are much more present long
term for the kids or the adults who get
this infection how common is meningitis
we’ve had a lot of successes in the past
with vaccines preventing the more common
types there’s one type that persists
called meningococcal meningitis and
these occur about about 300 kids or
adults per year in Canada
how is meningitis transmitted meningitis
is really bad luck when it happens to
individual it’s transferred from person
to person
and it’s true droplets we say so if you
cough and you spray some very small
droplets the bacteria can be transported
and aspirated in the other person in
front of you so it’s through these
droplets or through sharing a glass or
older kids or adults a cigarette they
can get it from that who would you say
is most at risk of contracting
meningitis it’s really children under
five especially under one and older
teenagers and young adults are also at
risk and the university population of
kids is also a group that has been noted
as being at risk for this type of
meningitis what are some signs and
symptoms that we should look out for so
the symptoms of meningitis initially can
look like the flu where children or
adults will have a fever that they may
have headache and they may vomit and
they feel achy all over so those are the
initial symptoms as the disease
progresses the more typical symptoms of
a stiffness of the neck have becoming
very lethargic and tired the headache
becomes more severe some individuals may
go on to have convulsions and so those
are the typical symptoms for me
joyas I read something about a rash so
with meningococcal meningitis you can
also have rashes that appear and these
look like bruises so initially when you
have one you think maybe I Britt was
myself but then they can spread all over
the body and they can look quite angry
and it looks like a red purplish bruise
what is the typical incubation period
the incubation period from having been
exposed to getting the disease is
usually less than a week tell us about
some of the short and long-term effects
of this illness for meningococcal
meningitis which is like I say the most
common one that we see at ten percent of
individuals who have this meningitis
will die and these tend to die within 24
to 48 hours of the onset of the disease
so it’s a very aggressive disease of the
survivors 10 to 20 percent will have
long-term sequelae and these include
neurological problems such as being
paralyzed becoming deaf having seizure
disorders people will have school
problems attention problems mental
problems behavior problems so those are
the neurological problem that can follow
meningitis some individuals will also
lose a limb from having had meningitis
because of the poor circulation
throughout the body associated with this
type of meningitis what are the
preventive measures we can take to avoid
meningitis the only prevention that we
have is to vaccination and there have
been vaccinations that have been made
available to the population in the past
and there are new ones that are will be
coming which will protect us against the
more common meningitis that we see today
and what about treatment options
treatment is passed medical care
intravenous antibiotics usually you end
up in intensive care at a hospital but
even with all of those treatments there
still is 10% death and 10 to 20% of
long-term sequelae so again the best
treatment is to prevent it and the
vaccines do a good job with that and are
if have been shown to be safe if you get
meningitis once can you get it again yes
so you can get more than once in your
life so I mean had it once doesn’t
protect you from getting it again
great thank you very much thank you
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