Meningitis

Meningitis is a disease in which the meninges of the human body become inflamed due to infection by viruses or bacteria, also known as cerebrospinal meningitis. Meningitis is an epidemic disease, and bacterial meningitis most often occurs in winter and spring. It is transmitted through the respiratory tract, with onset occurring 2 to 7 days after infection. Its main symptoms include: high fever around 39°C, drowsiness, or even confusion, photophobia with reluctance to open the eyes, severe headache, and neck stiffness. In infants under one and a half years old, the anterior fontanelle may bulge slightly, accompanied by vomiting; some may also develop purplish-red rashes and other symptoms. Children under five years old are most susceptible to meningitis. Clinically, meningitis can be classified into six types: bacterial meningitis, tuberculous meningitis, viral meningitis, cryptococcal meningitis, acute purulent meningitis, and Haemophilus influenzae meningitis. Meningitis usually occurs as sporadic cases. Viral meningitis most often occurs in summer; cases caused by enteroviruses are transmitted through the digestive tract, while those caused by Japanese encephalitis virus are transmitted through the bite of virus-carrying mosquitoes, and it mostly occurs in children over a certain age. The symptoms of viral meningitis are similar to those of bacterial meningitis, but relatively speaking, bacterial meningitis is far more severe than viral meningitis and can be fatal in severe cases. For the treatment of meningitis, regardless of whether test results have been obtained, large-dose antibiotic therapy should be initiated immediately. This is an emergency measure taken because the condition is quite critical. However, since antibiotics only target bacterial infections, once laboratory results confirm viral meningitis, antibiotics should be discontinued and replaced with other medications; if laboratory tests confirm a bacterial infection, drugs should be selected based on drug susceptibility results, and the duration of antibiotic treatment is generally about 10 days.