Meningitis, Killer Of Young Adults

MENINGITIS

To all college students getting ready to start school. Remember that there is a killer loose on campus.

Its name is Neisseria Meningitidis, also known as the Meningococcus.

Yes, it causes meningitis, but this is a vicious killer! In addition to striking small children, it likes to attack robust men and women in their upper teens and early twenties, that's right! College kids.

When it strikes, you feel like you have the flu; a few hours later, you are septic; in a few more, you are in septic shock.

When the inflammation of the meninges around your brain starts (meningitis), which, by the way, is described by survivors, as the most agonizing of conditions you can experience, "you will find yourself alone in green pastures with the sun on your face because you are in Elysium, and you are already dead!"

That's right. Imagine a college athlete at age 22 with everything going for him. He has a sore throat in the morning and is dead by nightfall!

Survivors usually lose limbs, go blind, develop renal failure, have heart attacks or strokes due to ischemia and dissolved blood vessels. The Meningococcus is a deliberate killer with no apparent goal except to take down its host rapidly. Scientists are always perplexed by infectious diseases like this one, which attack, then kill their host and themselves in the process. This organism secretes an endotoxin that attacks macrophages (white cells, whose job is to search and destroy invaders), and at the same time eats away the intimal lining of our blood vessles. This is why many victims have severe petechiae and bruising almost immediately after infection.

We can kill this bad boy with penicillin! The problem is... that when the organism breaks down from the penicillin we use, he releases huge quantities of this toxin, and we gain nothing, and our patients are left dead or crippled!

No, there is no treatment, but there is a vaccine! It is our only weapon right now, and yes, it works very well! Do yourself and others a favor and get it.

Keep in mind that this is a stealthy organism. 15 to 20% of Americans are carriers. That means 2 out of every 10 people you brush by, are harboring this organism without it causing illness to them, but they can infect you. It can be transmitted by sharing a cup or straw. Yes you can catch it from a casual kiss as well as sexual activity. Use your head, and keep your hands clean.

Make Sure You Get The Meningococcal Vaccine This Summer Before You Head To School!