Three cases of meningitis to 24 hours in Tuscany. One is meningococcal type C and two of type B. The first episode has been confirmed by the laboratory of thehospital Meyer (Florence) for a 20 year old girl is a resident of Prato, who was admitted in the late evening of the last day of the year in the icu in the hospital of Santo Stefano. The local health authority of Prato has activated all the procedures for prophylaxis by antibiotic coverage, from the morning of new year’s Eve, family and friends who have had contact with the young man in the 10 days pri or to the first symptoms. As he writes the Republic the young man had been vaccinated in September. The cases of type B concern instead of a 83enne D hospital to Livorno (the conditions are the series, and the elder is in the prognosis reserved) and a 55-year-old Impruneta admitted to the Santa Maria Annunziata (of Florence.
60 cases of meningitis C registered in the region over the past two years, 31 in 2015, and 29 in 2016, which have led to 13 deaths (6, 7). In addition to this, a death from meningitis strain B, and the death, in November last, of a patient suffering from meningitis pneumococcal. The higher incidence of the virus was recorded in the age group 20-29 years, followed by the range 0-19. Only in 19 cases the people affected had more than 40 years.
All the health authorities point out that there is a particular incidence of the disease in these years than in the past. As explained two days ago Antonio Chirianni, the chief of infectious Diseases at the hospital Monaldi-Cotugno-Cto, Naples, and chairman of Simit, Italian society of infectious and tropical diseases: "there is a greater concentration of deaths from meningitis, at this time there is more media attention". "It is not a disease eradicated, and the meningitis are many, ” he added, Chirianni – because the agents there are many causes". At this time, the cases which are recorded are due to the "meningococcus, one of the many forms". Therefore, there is a greater concentration of deaths. Meningitis is "an illness that is always present that each year a certain number of patients that contract and has a mortality rate of between 5% and 10%". "But an increase, at national level, between 1% and 2%, – he continued – is not suc h as to make statistics". The advice is always to immunization: "The vaccine covers a number of meningitis, it is not mandatory, but in most of the Italian regions, is free of charge and offered especially to children." To date, however, despite the gratuitousness of the vaccine, "the coverage is very low." Responsibility "is the misinformation made by some on the vaccines and the vaccination in the broadest sense and not only related to meningitis".
