Meningitis: Lagos State Refutes Allege Report Of Deaths

Vanguard News A Nigerian newspaper and Online version of the Vanguard, a daily publication in Nigeria covering Niger delta, general national news, politics, business, energy, sports, entertainment, fashion,lifestyle human interest stories, etc Home About Us Advertise With Us Contact Us Meningitis: Lagos State refutes allege report of deaths ON April 9, 20178:39 AM/ IN News/Comments Says CSM not causative agent By Chioma Obinna The Lagos State Ministry of Health yesterday refuted media reports alleging that two deaths attributed to meningitis have been recorded in the state. The Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, while reviewing the activities of the state government with regards to curtailing and controlling the spread of the meningitis epidemic in press statement dismissed the report as false, capable of causing undue panic among the citizenry Ad closed by Report this ad Why this ad? Seen this ad multiple times Ad covered content Ad was inappropriate Not interested in this ad We'll try not to show that ad again Ad closed by “The report carried by some newspapers and online platforms is untrue and does not represent the reality of the situation in Lagos State as at today”, he said. For the avoidance of doubt, there are two main types of meningitis. The epidemic prone meningitis which is referred to as Cerebro-spinal meningitis (CSM) is caused by a bacteria called Neisseria Meningitidis and its occurrence is seasonal or cyclical depending on the level of herd immunity and climatic conditions. The second type of meningitis is Non Epidemic Meningitis. This type of neningitis is usually caused by a virus or other bacteria, but not by Neisseria Meningitidis. The Non-epidemic meningitis occurs without any seasonal pattern or periodicity . Idris also disclosed that though the Disease Surveillance Notification Officer, Lagos Island Local Govt reported nine suspected cases of meningitis from Massey Street Children Hospital in Week 13 of this year with two deaths, none of these was confirmed as due to the causative agent of CSM. He further revealed that though all the nine cases presented with clinical features of meningitis at the said hospital but laboratory tests proved that they were either due to Haemophilus influenza or Streptococcus pneumoniae and not Neisseria meningitidis. Idris, in addition, said that the Ministry of Health was also notified last week of a three year old boy presenting clinically as meningitis at a registered private facility in Lagos but the laboratory investigations did not confirm CSM. According to him ” the blood culture yielded no growth but the urine culture yielded Klebsiella and not meningococcus. The patient is already is responding to treatment” Idris affirmed that “none of these cases presented with a history of recent travel to any area with an outbreak of meningitis and neither were visits from such areas recorded with the aforementioned cases”.