Dangers Of Meningococcemia

This disease can kill within 24 hours after its onset. Aside from the lives that the disease has taken, many survivors have been maimed and disfigured and has bought anguish and pain to many families which have lost a loved one to the deadly bacteria. This disease can strike anytime and anybody, this is neither prevalent in cold places only and does not choose a particular time of the year to strike and claim it’s victims. Everybody carries a small risk of getting the disease. But children, particularly those whose ages are under five are the most at risk, followed by teenagers and young adults.

As many as 15-20 percent of patients with meningococcemia die as a result of acute infection. Survivors will have tissue damage that requires surgical treatment because meningo attacks the blood vessels and causes them to leak and clot from within. Large areas of skin, muscle and internal organs die from the lack of blood and oxygen and the patient has a high risk of dying.

Survivors need to undergo skin grafts, or even partial or full amputations of an arm or a leg. Those with immune system defects may have recurrent episodes of meningococcemia. The method of preventing the dieses is a thousand times better than attempting to treat the disease with antibiotics. The lives, anguish, expense and public safety saved by the preventive method are worth the investment in the vaccine. Initially, meningococcemia is very hard to diagnose, but as the day progressed, bruises, high fever and vomiting are sure signs of the disease.