A Hungarian high school student died of meningitis

According to index.hu, a graduate high school student of the Veres Pálné High School in Budapest died of contagious meningitis.

The boy died at Wednesday dawn, a few hours after the appearance of the symptoms. György Póta, the president of the Hungarian Paediatrician Association said that the boy felt completely fine during the day, he came down with a fever in the evening and died by the next morning. The girlfriend of the deceased boy was examined in the hospital, but she wasn’t infected.

According to the account of the 5^th district school’s deputy-headmaster, the National Public Health and Medical Officer Service informed them that the cause of the boy’s death was C-type contagious meningitis. Several of his classmates got the vaccination.

The disease spreads by droplet infection through direct contact. The school believes that only those who had direct contact with the boy could be in danger, and they all received antibiotic treatment by epidemiologists. The school warns everyone to go to the doctor if they experience high fever, headache, nausea, photophobia, stiff neck or consciousness disturbance in the next ten days.

Vaccinations against purulent meningitis are not obligatory, neither are they free. The Meningococcus C vaccination costs 7000 forints.

According to the data of the Hungarian Epidemiologic Centre, they observed purulent meningitis in 14 cases in babies and in 10 cases in 1-5 year-olds last year. Every fourth patient died of the disease, one third of the deceased were younger than 5.

Copy editor: bm

Source: http://index.hu/