PNS | Shillong

Meghalaya Health and Family Welfare Minister Advisor Pariong ordered deployment of surveillance rapid teams across the State with the rising incidents of meningococcal meningitis disease.

RAJU DAS
SHILLONG, Jan 13

SHILLONG: Meningococcal meningitis has claimed 193 lives in the State this year and there are public concerns that the killer disease is yet to be wiped out from Meghalaya.

Director of Health Services Dr KH Lakiang on Wednesday said only ten meningococcal meningitis deaths had been "medically confirmed" by doctors in government hospitals.

ecological sciences Bird diversity is anti-viral Greater bird diversity protects humans from a deadly virus known to cause meningitis. The West Nile Virus, usually maintained in a bird-mosquito cycle in nature, can be transmitted to humans through a mosquito bite. Biologists from Washington University recently said most birds are bad reservoirs for the virus and so it fails to further

SHILLONG: Despite the government taking help of experts from Delhi to fight meningococcal meningitis, the virus has remained a headache to the Health Department, claiming the life of one more person on Sunday, taking the toll from the disease to nine in the State.

In a major break through, a vaccine for meningitis B, caused by bacterial infection, has performed well in a preliminary trial in Britain. Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. Vaccines are available against meningitis A and C, but none yet exists for meningitis B, the leading cause of bacterial meningitis throughout the world. Annually there are between 20,000-80,000 cases of meningitis B all over the world and of these 10 per cent result in death.

An experimental meningitis vaccine appears to generate more potent immunity than the version now available in young people who suffer most from the disease, researchers reported Monday. Previous research shows the Novartis vaccine, called Menveo, also works in young infants, who are not protected by the current vaccine. BETTER LIFE: Health news and wellness tips "It has a great deal of potential in that age group," says Keith Reisinger, medical director of Primary Physicians Research Inc., the for-profit clinical trials organization that carried out the Novartis study.

An experimental meningitis vaccine appears to generate more potent immunity than the version now available in young people who suffer most from the disease, researchers reported Monday. Previous research shows the Novartis vaccine, called Menveo, also works in young infants, who are not protected by the current vaccine. BETTER LIFE: Health news and wellness tips "It has a great deal of potential in that age group," says Keith Reisinger, medical director of Primary Physicians Research Inc., the for-profit clinical trials organization that carried out the Novartis study.