Meningitis Case Studies

There are over 4000 people affected by bacterial meningitis and around 500 deaths from this in the US every year ("Meningitis."). 6000 cases of pneumococcal meningitis are reported in the US each year and meningococcal meningitis infects close to 2600 people in the US each year ("Meningitis."). 10-15% of these meningococcal cases are fatal, while an additional 10-15% lives with permanent

Neisseria meningitidis is a fastidious, aerobic, and encapsulated gram-negative diplococcus which infects humans via droplet transmission to and from mucosal surfaces in the nasopharyngeal region. Only humans can be infected with N. meningitidis and the disease manifests in children under two years of age and in young adults. N. meningitidis can be found as normal regional flora of the nasopharynx in some individuals, but when it causes infection leads to meningitis and occasionally septicaemia. The major symptoms of N. meningitidis infection include a stiff neck, high fever, photophobia, confusion, cephalgia and emesis. If the patient’s condition has worsened causing sepsis, they can present with a haemorrhagic rash which is indicative of

In 2013, The US retailer was had one of the largest security breaches for a US retailer. From Nov 24th to Dec 15th hackers were able to steal 40 million credit cards records using the Zeus virus for entry. They then manipulated the POS system to record all credit cards and debit cards. The Zeus virus has been able to infect more then 3.6 million pc and continues to do so. The hackers were able to access Target’s network through a third party vendor and access core systems to begin there chaos. Target’s IT security actually was able to identified the malware with FireEye during the breach but did not act due to failure in security process. The total damage of this breach is estimated to be 252 million and brought a larger spotlight on

Rouphael N, Stephens S (2015, March 4) Neisseria meningitidis: Biology, Microbiology and Epidemiology Retrieved from

N. meningitidis produce an antiphagocytic capsular polysaccharide, which is a coat with highly variable surface proteins, to permit evasiveness. Additional mechanisms such has having a high variable pili and producing high amounts of endotoxin lipopolysaccharide contributes to its pathology. N. meningitidis also happens to require iron reduction as part of their metabolism and growth and therefore validates humans as their optimal reservoirs. Other requirements for bacterial metabolism, growth and virulence are mineral salts, pyruvate, lactate, amino acids (GC), and glutamic acid. When infection occurs, N. meningitidis will aggregate blood cells

Ten to fifteen percent of cases are fatal. Ten to fifteen percent of patients who recover have permanent hearing loss, mental retardation, loss of limbs, brain damage, or learning disability in ten to twenty percent of survivors. (WHO, 2004) The groups at risk for this disease include the general population, infants and young children, refugees, household contacts of case patients, military recruits, college freshmen who live in dormitories, people exposed to firsthand and secondhand smoke, and microbiologists who work with isolates of Neisseria Meningitidis. (CDC, 2004)

Meningococcal disease is a disease that can be found worldwide. Meningococcal disease refers to any disease or illness that is caused by the type of bacteria called Neisseria meningitides, also called meningococcus (Meningococcal disease, 2015). The first documented outbreak was over two hundred years ago in Geneva in 1805 which circulated rapidly and killed thirty three people. The first case ever recorded in America was in 1806 in Medford, Massachusetts (Fredericks, n.d.). A European physician, Professor A Weichselbaum, discovered the cause of the mysterious cerebro-spinal meningitis illness in 1887 and Penicillin was the first antibiotic used to fight the disease. In 1978 the first

Neisseria meningitidis is found in people’s nose and throat of about 10 percent of the population. This bacteria can get into the blood and the brain and cause severe illness. When the bacteria is found in the blood it can cause sepsis, an infection. When it is found in the brain it can cause meningitis, which is the swelling of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord.

Meningococcal Meningitis is the infection and inflammation of the meninges. Newborns and infants are at greatest risk for contracting bacterial meningitis with Neisseria meningitides being the typical pathogen in the majority of children age 2 months through 12 years (London, Ladewig, Ball, Bindler, & Cowen, 2011). There is a mortality rate of 10% for children who develop meningitis from this particular bacterium (Muller, 2013).

Meningitis is a contagious infection of the cerebrospinal fluid and inflammation of the meninges, the nearby membrane that covers the spinal cord and brain. Both the meninges and cerebrospinal fluid serve as protectors

An acute disease which is referred to any potentially disease that is caused by the type of bacteria called Neisseria meningitidis is named as meningococcal disease. This is a life threatening infection which may end in death. (Nadel et al.,2006, MacNiel et al., 2011) The first meningococcal disease was reported before 5 centuries. Meningococcal diseases are often severe and serious that present in meningitis 50% of cases and 40% septicemia (Gabuttiet et al., 2015). Some infected people may have one or both of these diseases. Both of them are occurring and spreading rapidly. Neisseria meningitidis is hosted in humans because they are the only reservoir. Rare forms of the disease including lung infection, joint infection and infection of the

Meningococcal disease is a large concern in the medical field because it is unbiased towards the patients it infects. There has been limited success in trying to eliminate this disease. Antibiotics play a role in helping to treat patients with bacterial meningitis, and steroids have been tested to help reduce risk factors. Prevention has also become a key issue because meningitis can only be spread through direct contact with infected body fluid. The best prevention is to maintain clean hygiene. Vaccines are another way of preventing disease. However, there are multiple serogroups of meningitis that makes creating a universal vaccine extremely difficult. So far, there have only been two

Meningitis is an inflammation of the meninges, membranes that surround the brain. This can extend as far as infecting the cerebral spinal fluid on top of causing the tissue to swell. Meningitis comes in two major forms; bacterially and virally. However, having bacterial meningitis is much more severe than viral meningitis. There is a lot more danger in having a bacterial infection within the brain than a viral infection within the brain. What makes bacterial meningitis so lethal is that “even when the disease is diagnosed early and adequate treatment is started, 5% to 10% of patients die, typically within 24 to 48 hours after the onset of symptoms. Left untreated, up to 50% of cases may die, (6) or there

Just by looking at the way of life of the people during the early civilization and the way of our life today, I can say that our way of life isn’t that different from theirs. They have laws, way of writing, armies, government, religion, language, way of economy, and science, mathematics, and technology which obviously, we also have nowadays. I would want to revive the part when people are still starting the establishment of the nation state. It is because during this time, people have the sense of unity for they have a common goal, which is to create an independent city state. Through all the revolutionary leaps that happened before, we can learn that achieving something we want will never be easy. It will take a lot of patience, bravery and

Many people don’t know this but there's more than one type of meningitis. There's actually 5; bacterial, viral, parasitic, fungal and non-infectious and each of these are classified by the cause of the disease. Even though they are different types of meningitis, all 5 of these types are life threatening and as most people know, what this disease is, is inflammation of the protective membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Although meningitis is mostly caused by a bacteria or a virus, it can also be caused by an injury,illness and medications.