Meningitis, a million vaccinated, they are not enough against the bacterium super aggressive – The Republic

A MILLION vaccinated. No Region has carried out a battle against the meningococcal C such as Tuscany, concerned now for two years in cases of meningitis and sepsis that is not able to contain it. And despite the country’s extraordinary for the prevention of the disease has involved a little less than a third of the population, the number of cases of 2016 is now slightly less than in 2015. A theme that comes up again with the death, this morning, a 45 year-old woman to the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova of Florence.

last year, in fact, had been affected 31 people, this year we had 26, and still has some weeks to 31 December. A sign that the vaccination is still too little spread to cover the dreaded St11, the subtype of the meningococcal C that is affecting in the region, especially in central areas but not only. The dead in two years, with that of today, and up to 7.

The St11. The St11 is the same subtype that has caused years ago a large epidemic in the United Kingdom and that has given headaches to the health systems of France and in the Veneto region. It is particularly aggressive and still very present in the population, as revealed by an epidemiological survey. There are so many carriers but is a high rate of people who develop the disease. And in some cases also the vaccine is not able to stem it. Among the 57 affected in Tuscany, in fact, 11 they had made the vaccination, even if 2 just a few days before developing the disease and could not have developed the immunity against the bacterium. It is, however, given up even if you have to remember that a person, who then died, the other vaccinated, they took on a form of the disease, rather bland. And since the vaccine is the only tool to combat the disease, the Region continues to invite its citizens to get vaccinated.

adolescents. Among the children 0 to 10 years of coverage are 90% because the meningococcal C is one of the diseases that fall in the calendar of prevention, for pediatric, much focus is placed on adolescents. In the range between 11 and 20 years, where it is believed there are more carriers, the percentage would be 60%. But in Tuscany, they get sick also adults, as in the last case, and the elderly. For this reason, the vaccine is offered free of charge to all. The St11 would have arrived in Tuscany in 2012, in the sense that before then had never been found in the laboratories. Indeed, he had hit four people on board a Cruise ship arrived in Livorno. The sick were hospitalized, and probably the bacterium from here has slowly begun to diffodersi.

Topics:

meningitis

meningococcal c

tuscany

st11

vaccine

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