A doctor at HCMC Children’s Hospital No. 2 examines a meningitis patient.

The hot weather in southern Vietnam has caused more children to catch meningitis, or brain inflammation, but few parents know enough about the disease to realize if their children have it.

Children’s Hospital No. 2 admitted nine kids with meningitis in the first five days of this month alone, according to the city’s health department.

The hospital’s Dr. Pham Thi Ngoc Tuyet says 13 children were admitted with the disease in January and February.

While meningitis can be caused by a virus, bacterium or other microorganisms, all the children admitted to the two hospitals so far this year have bacterial meningitis.

Most of them are under five years old and have not been vaccinated against the disease.

Dr. Tran Thi Thuy, deputy head of the Children Hospital No. 2’s infectious disease department, says the bacteria travel with dust, which is much commoner on hot and dry days, making it easy for the pathogen to enter the body. She predicts more cases until May.

The bacteria first enter the blood or respiratory system before moving to the covering of the brain and spinal cord as a person’s body becomes weaker.

Doctors advise parents to keep their children away from patients with respiratory problems and to seek immediate treatment for a child who gets respiratory inflammation.

As meningitis can be fatal or cause permanent impairment, Dr. Khanh says, prevention is the best medicine so children should be kept warm and clean, and be immunized before the age of five, preferably in their second or third month of life.

The city’s hospitals have stocked up on vaccines against the haemophilus influenzae and pneumococci forms of meningitis.

Dr. Khanh warns that children immunized against Japanese encephalitis are not necessarily safe from other forms of meningitis as the two diseases can be caused by different bacteria or other microorganisms.

In the first days of meningitis, little children experience fever, vomiting and confusion while bigger kids also cough more, sneeze and have slight diarrhea.

Dr. Thuy says many parents tend to mistake the symptoms of meningitis for the common cold and only take their children to hospital when they’re in critical condition.

A case in point is a nine-year-old boy from Dong Nai Province who was taken to Children’s Hospital No. 2 a fortnight after showing the first symptoms of meningitis and has yet to respond to treatment.

He had been given cold medicine at home and then taken to several private clinics.

“Meningitis needs to be diagnosed as soon as possible,” says Thuy, adding it is not only to save a young life but to prevent the onset of deafness, epilepsy, hydrocephalus and cognitive deficits that the disease can cause.

Any child whose temperature goes above 38 degrees Celsius accompanied by headache, confusion, convulsion and vomiting should be taken straight to hospital, doctors warn.

In related news, the health department says measles and rubella have been brought under control in Ho Chi Minh City, with only one case of rubella reported in the city since the beginning of this month, as against the alarming 84 cases in February.

Le Thi Xuan Lan, deputy head of the Southern Regional Hydrometeorological Center’s forecasting department, says the high humidity at the moment increases the risk of respiratory disease.

With unseasonal rain forecast in the coming days, there will be more mosquitoes in those districts where there are many ponds, pools and lakes, such as Binh Thanh and Go Vap, threatening to revisit dengue fever on the city.

Source: Agencies