In Pouldergat, a little girl was hospitalized for meningitis. About sixty people around him are on prophylaxis.
A student from the Yves-Riou public school in Pouldergat, near Douarnenez (Finistère), was hospitalized for meningitis on Tuesday, the newspaper reports West France. The little girl, educated in the first grade, was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit after having tested positive for invasive meningococcal type B infection.
“There is no vaccine for this type B meningococcus,” explained a doctor from the Regional Health Agency (ARS), who came to provide details on what to do. This bacterium is transmitted “by mouth to mouth, by saliva”.
Preventive treatment
Since Tuesday, the ARS team is in the process of identifying all the people likely to have been in contact with the little girl, starting with her family and her “social environment”. “This therefore concerns the people of his family and his social environment who have been in contact with the pupil over the last ten days, face to face, for more than an hour and less than a meter”, have specified the health authorities.
In all, about sixty people have been identified and will need to take preventive treatment (prophylaxis) in order to avoid the development of an infection.
With six cases per 100,000 population, invasive meningococcal type B infection is quite rare. Meningitis is inflammation of the meninges, the envelopes of the brain, and the spinal cord. It occurs at any age, but more particularly affects children and adolescents. Symptoms are severe headache (“headache”), stiff neck, high fever, intolerance to light (“photophobia”), nausea or vomiting.
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