Free Republic

The current meningitis outbreak in parts of China is of a reasonable size and controllable, officials said. No new infections or deaths were reported yesterday. Sixteen people have been confirmed dead from the disease since January. "It's not necessary to panic," said Deng Haihua, a Ministry of Health (MOH) official. Cerebral-spinal meningitis, an acute infectious disease that spreads through the respiratory system, is not as contagious as the flu or the common cold, which usually occur during winter and spring, he said. The deaths of five students in East China's Anhui Province caused by the disease last month, has attracted...

A committee of experts meeting in Atlanta will debate today whether the government can afford to pay for a vaccine that could save the lives of nearly 3,000 people, many of them teenagers, from deaths caused over the next decade by a virulent bacterial meningitis. The price of the new vaccine will most likely be $80 a dose. Vaccinating all 40 million people from age 11 to 20, as some experts have suggested, would cost the government $3.5 billion next year. That is more than $1 million a life spared, far more than health officials are normally willing to spend....

LONDON -- A 19-year-old British woman died Monday on board a Virgin Atlantic flight from Miami to London's Heathrow Airport, the airline said. A day earlier, two passengers on a British Airways flight from Miami to Heathrow died, including one from suspected viral meningitis. The Virgin Atlantic passenger, who was not identified, died on flight VS006 shortly before landing, a spokeswoman for the carrier said. She said crew had tried to revive her and a doctor had come forward to help, but the woman was pronounced dead on arrival at Heathrow, west of London. Police said the cause of death...

A Eugene teen-ager killed by bacterial meningitis and a second one made critically ill by the same virulent disease attended the same punk rock show at the WOW Hall during the Eugene Celebration, public health investigators said Monday. Both 16-year-old Mani Shimada, who died last Thursday, and 15-year-old Christina Norton, who fell ill Sunday and is listed in critical condition, were sickened by bacterial meningitis. Also known as meningococcal disease, the illness can progress at a frightening pace and lead to death if not quickly treated. Both attended the Sept. 20 "Bloodstains Across Eugene" music show at the WOW Hall,...

RESEARCHERS here say that one in six Singaporean Haj pilgrims comes back carrying meningitis-causing bacteria - even though the pilgrims have been vaccinated. People carrying the virus risk passing the disease to their families back home. Researchers from Tan Tock Seng Hospital took swabs from the throats of 204 Malay pilgrims who sought vaccination against the bug before departing for Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, last year. Only one was carrying the bug. Upon their return from Mecca, 171 were re-tested, and this time, 29 were meningococcal carriers. Most of them were carrying the potentially-deadly W135 strain and six of them...

Death toll tops 1,000 in meningitis epidemic believed carried by Mecca pilgrims By BRAHIMA OUEDRAOGO, Associated Press Writer OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso - Aid workers opened makeshift clinics in tents and schools Thursday, as hospitals overflowed with feverish victims of a meningitis strain reaching epidemic level for the first time in West Africa. The death toll in the impoverished, desert nation of Burkina Faso topped 1,000, the Health Ministry reported. "The situation is still worrying, because the number of victims is still going up," Health Minister Pierre Tapsoba said, touring one hospital treating meningitis patients in the capital, Oaugadougou. The Red...

Health officials Tuesday debated whether to order widespread preventative immunizations after a Purdue University student contracted bacterial meningitis while on spring break in Florida. It was unclear when the student was infected since the disease can incubate for as long as 10 days before symptoms are displayed. The 19-year-old freshman became ill Saturday at an airport as he awaited a flight back to Indiana from Florida. A university spokesman said the youth is hospitalized in Fort Myers, Fla., in guarded but improving condition. So far, immunizations and antibiotics have been ordered only for those who had close contact with the...