In Nice, a 15-year-old boy died of lightning bacteriological meningitis on the night of Tuesday January 7 to Wednesday January 8. In order to avoid the risk of contagion, the Regional Health Agency immediately implemented a protocol.
“It was very sudden and very hard.” In Nice, the Palmiers school is in mourning. A 15-year-old boy died of lightning bacteriological meningitis on the night of Tuesday January 7 to Wednesday January 8, after being hospitalized in the city. “It is a drama for the family that we will support as well as possible”, commented the Nice academy, contacted by nice morning. The Regional Health Agency (ARS) implemented a protocol on the Saturday that followed.
“We looked for high-risk contacts, that is to say people who had prolonged and close contact, less than one meter and more than an hour in a row in the ten days preceding the incident. ‘appearance of invasive meningococcal infection’, explains Dr. Samer Aboukais, delegate for monitoring and health security at the ARS, to nice morning. All these people were treated with rifampicin, a preventive antibiotic, while some relatives also underwent prophylactic vaccination.
As for the school, it mourns the loss of the young man. “The kid was healthy on Monday and Tuesday. It was sudden and very hard for the kids in his class. They were crying. They were also scared because some students had to go to the hospital for treatment and another went to the hospital on Friday for the same symptoms,” a teacher told the regional daily. However, do not panic, since according to the ARS, no other case of meningitis was reported afterwards.
A rare disease in France
This is not the first time that the city of Nice has faced such a tragedy. Last June, a 17-year-old high school girl had already died of meningitis.
Meningitis is an acute inflammation of the “meninges”, the membranes that surround and protect the brain and spinal cord. On its website, health insurance reminds that “po prevent the onset of certain meningitis, compliance with vaccination recommendations is essential”.
In general, meningitis is caused by a virus, so it is viral, but it can sometimes be caused by bacteria and is then often much more serious. “Iinvasive meningococcal infections are rare in France (500 cases per year, Editor’s note). They can result in fever, headache, stiff neck, vomiting, discomfort in the light or the appearance of spots on the body. Faced with these signs, you must quickly consult a doctor”, explained the ARS in a press release published following the death of the high school student from Nice.
The importance of a rapid diagnosis
The agency still wanted to be reassuring: “Meningococcus is not very contagious. It is transmitted by direct contact with the saliva of the infected subject (coughing, sneezing, kissing on the mouth). For the germ to be transmitted, it takes direct, repeated, prolonged, face-to-face person-to-person contact at a distance of less than one meter. Severe infection is only seen in a small number of people encountering the bacteria (1 per 100,000 population per year).”
For the unfortunate people affected by meningococcal meningitis, in 60% of cases, they have no sequelae. On the other hand, 20% of them experience deafness, blindness, paralysis, or fall into a coma. “Many survivors have long-term, debilitating side effects as severe as brain damage and deafness. (…) This is why it is crucial not to delay the execution of the lumbar puncture”, explains Vinny Smith, director general of the Meningitis Research Foundation (MRF).
For the remaining 20%, meningitis kills. Often because of a too late diagnosis, which can be explained by useless brain analyzes before the lumbar puncture. Thus, “the rapid diagnosis of a specific cause of meningitis is essential to prescribe the right antibiotics if necessary, or to avoid unnecessary antibiotics in patients with viral meningitis. Efforts should focus on treating symptoms and speeding up discharge from hospital, which would be less painful for patients”, concludes doctor Mike Griffiths, specialist in the disease.
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