geomancer
07-25-2011, 12:04 PM
https://www.sciencenewsdigital.org/71a11791eddb2696aa75d9147dabda7f/4e2dbdc1/pp/sciencenews20110618-c20ad4d76f-pp.pdf?lm=1310681955000
Drop in bacterial meningitis found
Vaccinations cut cases by nearly one-third over decade
By Nathan Seppa
Just a few decades ago, a pediatrician getting a frantic phone call from a parent whose child was running a high fever would immediately consider bacterial meningitis. Today, that diagnosis is unlikely: Vaccination has slashed incidence of the deadly brain inflammation, a nationwide survey shows.
Researchers scanned data from more than 17 million people and found that the incidence of bacterial meningitis in the United States had fallen by 31 percent from 1998 to 2007, researchers report in the May 26 New England Journal of Medicine.
“For people taking care of kids since the 1980s, the world of meningitis has completely changed in the United States — and it’s because of two vaccines,” says Matthew Davis, a pedia- trician at the University of Michigan Medical School who was not part of the new study. Parents know these as Hib, the vaccine for Haemophilus influenzae type B, and as PCV, for Streptococcus pneumoniae. Those two microbes were historically among the chief causes of bacterial meningitis.
The first hit to disease rates came in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of Hib, which remains a routine immu- nization for children. Then in 2000 the Food and Drug Administration approved a PCV vaccine called Prevnar-7 for S. pneumoniae, a microbe that can cause meningitis, pneumonia, ear infections and other ailments (SN: 4/7/07, p. 222).
That vaccine reduced meningitis due to S. pneumoniae by 26 percent between 1998 and 2007, the new data show. A recently approved version of the vaccine will fur- ther reduce cases by broadening coverage to 13 strains of the bacterium, predicts study coauthor William Schaffner, a physician at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.
A third vaccine, aimed at another meningitis bacterium, Neisseria meningitidis, was also approved in recent years. Called the meningococcal vaccine, it is commonly given at the start of adolescence and as a booster for college freshmen.
The new study suggests that giving these vaccines to kids has also limited meningitis outbreaks among adults, who are now less likely to catch the microbes from youngsters, says study coauthor Cynthia Whitney of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Bacterial meningitis is treated with antibiotics, but the inflammation that it causes in the membrane covering the brain and spinal cord can be lethal. Although the number of cases has dwindled, the fatality rate for bacterial meningitis in the nationwide sampling remains around 15 percent.
Drop in bacterial meningitis found
Vaccinations cut cases by nearly one-third over decade
By Nathan Seppa
Just a few decades ago, a pediatrician getting a frantic phone call from a parent whose child was running a high fever would immediately consider bacterial meningitis. Today, that diagnosis is unlikely: Vaccination has slashed incidence of the deadly brain inflammation, a nationwide survey shows.
Researchers scanned data from more than 17 million people and found that the incidence of bacterial meningitis in the United States had fallen by 31 percent from 1998 to 2007, researchers report in the May 26 New England Journal of Medicine.
“For people taking care of kids since the 1980s, the world of meningitis has completely changed in the United States — and it’s because of two vaccines,” says Matthew Davis, a pedia- trician at the University of Michigan Medical School who was not part of the new study. Parents know these as Hib, the vaccine for Haemophilus influenzae type B, and as PCV, for Streptococcus pneumoniae. Those two microbes were historically among the chief causes of bacterial meningitis.
The first hit to disease rates came in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of Hib, which remains a routine immu- nization for children. Then in 2000 the Food and Drug Administration approved a PCV vaccine called Prevnar-7 for S. pneumoniae, a microbe that can cause meningitis, pneumonia, ear infections and other ailments (SN: 4/7/07, p. 222).
That vaccine reduced meningitis due to S. pneumoniae by 26 percent between 1998 and 2007, the new data show. A recently approved version of the vaccine will fur- ther reduce cases by broadening coverage to 13 strains of the bacterium, predicts study coauthor William Schaffner, a physician at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.
A third vaccine, aimed at another meningitis bacterium, Neisseria meningitidis, was also approved in recent years. Called the meningococcal vaccine, it is commonly given at the start of adolescence and as a booster for college freshmen.
The new study suggests that giving these vaccines to kids has also limited meningitis outbreaks among adults, who are now less likely to catch the microbes from youngsters, says study coauthor Cynthia Whitney of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Bacterial meningitis is treated with antibiotics, but the inflammation that it causes in the membrane covering the brain and spinal cord can be lethal. Although the number of cases has dwindled, the fatality rate for bacterial meningitis in the nationwide sampling remains around 15 percent.