Aug. 13--No other illness makes a parent's heart skip a beat like meningococcal meningitis.
This disease can kill in less than 24 hours and gives little warning that death is near.
In Rose Kwett's case, she lost her 15-year-old daughter MaryJo within 13 hours after her first symptoms.
"If she would have been vaccinated, she would have survived," Kwett said, a registered nurse at Mercy General Hospital.
As the summer starts to wrap up and students are getting back to school, getting the meningococcal meningitis vaccination may be a good idea.
"The ones with highest risks are children under the age of 2, teenagers and college freshmen," said Dr. Glennah Trochet, Sacramento's public health officer.
Only about 48 percent of California teens 13-17 years of age have been immunized, a National Immunization Survey found. That statistic is far below the goal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: a 90 percent vaccination rate.
In 2000, when MaryJo Kwett died, she was too young to get the vaccine, so doctors never recommended it.
In 2005, regulations and recommendations changed. All preteens and adolescents, and children ages 2 through 10 who are at high risk, are recommended to be vaccinated.
Since MaryJo's death, Kwett has made it a mission to help raise awareness of the meningococcal disease. She formed Meningitis Awareness Key to Prevention, a nonprofit education and awareness organization that encourages physicians to recommend vaccination against the strains of the disease, and urges parents to consider vaccinating their children.
Kwett also speaks to teenagers about the deadly disease.
It its viral form, meningitis, an infection of the fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, is more common and less dangerous. But the bacterial form, meningococcal disease, is fast-moving and can lead to brain damage and death.
Early symptoms mimic the flu -- fever, headache, neck pain and nausea. As the disease progresses, victims can develop purplish blotches, confusion and seizures.
The disease can be spread when people touch, kiss, share the same glass or sneeze without covering their mouths.
It is a sneaky disease that healthy people can carry and, unknowingly, spread around.
In Sacramento County this year there have been eight cases of meningitis, and no deaths have been reported since 2007, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
In efforts to keep these numbers low, educate people and urge adolescents to get vaccinated, the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors has partnered with the California School Nurses Organization, Sacramento County Department of Health and Human Services, and Sacramento Healthy Community Immunization Coalition to declare Aug. 16-20 "Voices of Meningitis Week".
This effort is in support of the National Association of School Nurses Voices of Meningitis campaign -- a program that brings together school nurses, parents, survivors of the disease and public health officials -- to help educate families of preteens and teens about the dangers of meningococcal meningitis.
"The disease can be devastating," said Roger Dickinson, chair of the Board of Supervisors. "But it can be preventable, and that is a real key."
MENINGITIS PREVENTION
Recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
Children: Meningococcal conjugate vaccine is recommended for certain high-risk children from ages 2 through 10.
Preteens/adolescents: Meningococcal conjugate vaccine is routinely recommended for all 11- through 18-year-olds. If a child did not get this vaccine at the 11- or 12-year-old check-up, make an appointment for it now.
Adults: Either meningococcal polysaccharide vaccine or meningococcal conjugate vaccine is recommended for adults if they are: a college freshman living in a dormitory, a military recruit, have a damaged spleen or have had spleen removed, have terminal complement deficiency, are a microbiologist who is routinely exposed to Neisseria meningitidis (the causal pathogen), are traveling to or residing in countries in which the disease is common.
More information: Visit www.voicesofmeningitis.org or www.makinfo.org
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Call The Bee's Jacqueline Baylon, (916) 321-1036.
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