New Recommendations for Bacterial Meningitis Vaccination
Hearing bacterial meningitis mentioned on the evening news can strike fear in any parent, especially if their child is in a high risk setting such as a high school or college dorm. Although rare, this illness can be life threatening, and is particularly alarming because it appears suddenly and can progress rapidly even in healthy children and teenagers. New vaccines have helped lower the incidence of bacterial meningitis significantly in the past decade, but it's still important to know the symptoms that should raise concern, especially if meningitis occurs in your community or child's school.
Rick Malley, MD, an associate in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital Boston, says it is important to emphasize that children may not display all of the signs and symptoms. Malley adds, "It's important that a patient shows up at the hospital quickly or it may be too late in the game." Although there is no way a parent can definitively tell if a child has bacterial meningitis, Malley says, "Parents are generally pretty aware of when their child is sick and in need of medical care."
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Spread the Word - NOT the Flu! is a new educational program designed to teach students and their families about the seriousness of influenza and the importance of receiving an annual vaccination. Through this program, children can make a difference by helping their families and communities learn about influenza prevention. Spread the Word - NOT the Flu! ...
Funded by a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, hope to understand how the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum evolved resistance to the once-effective medication chloroquine. “Malaria is responsible for 1-3 million deaths a year, most of whom are children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa,” said J. Koji ...
A peak in ragweed and mold spores that comes with the onset of fall can aggravate symptoms in children with allergic asthma. So can the flu and other seasonal bugs in the autumn and winter months. Avoiding triggers is important to prevent asthma attacks but so is the diligent use of controller medications, say experts from the Johns Hopkins Children’s ...
With the finding that fever is produced by the action of a hormone on a specific site in the brain, scientists have answered a key question as to how this adaptive function helps to protect the body during bacterial infection and other types of illness. Reported by researchers at BethIsraelDeaconessMedicalCenter (BIDMC), the study results appear today in Nature Neuroscience’s Advance ...
Fifteen-year-old Kaci Jawegg’s family knew the signs and symptoms all too well: It would start with itchy ears, followed by a sore and scratchy throat. “I would say, ‘oh, here we go again. Everyone’s got to stay away from Kaci or they’ll get sick too’,” recalls Annette Tase of her daughter Kaci’s frequent bouts of strep throat and tonsillitis. About ...
Bacteria and viruses are the microscopic organisms – otherwise known as germs -- that are responsible for causing and transmitting illness and disease. These microbes are so small, that according to the American Society for Microbiology, if the smallest of all microbes was the size of a baseball, an average bacterium would then be the size of the pitcher's mound, and just one of the millions of cells that make up your body would be the size of the ballpark!
