News Release

Steep falls in deaths from meningococcal disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BMJ Specialty Journals

There has been a sharp fall in the risk of dying from meningococcal disease, reports research from Alder Hey Children's Hospital, in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The research tracked 123 children with meningococcal disease admitted to the regional paediatric intensive care unit at the hospital between 1995 and 1998. Their ages ranged from 2 months to 16 years.

Eleven of the children died, giving a death rate of just under 9 per cent. A validated scoring system to assess likely risk of death according to severity of the disease indicated that the death rates should have been almost 25 per cent.

The authors conclude that death rates from meningococcal disease have slumped, but why is less clear. They suggest that over the past decade awareness of the disease has heightened, which is likely to mean earlier recognition and treatment, with a better outcome.

Delivery and organisation of treatment have also improved they say. And the introduction of the meningococcal C vaccine has also had an impact. But they say that while group C meningococcal disease might be on the decline, the incidence of other forms of meningococcal disease has increased.

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[Mortality in severe meningococcal disease 2001; 85:382-5]


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