As menacing as the name dictates, Meningitis is the last thing you’d ever want to encounter for yourself or your loved ones. A disease that targets protective membranes of your brain, as well as your spinal cord, it causes an acute inflammation that often results in loss of hearing, fever, stiff neck, vomiting, loss of appetite, as well as a complementary rash. More severe cases include amputation, and quite possibly death.
To learn more about this gripping disease, here are 10 facts you need to know about meningitis:

Fact 1: Any one can contract meningitis at any age, but studies show that about 95 percent of those who suffer from bacterial meningitis are those under the age of 5! There are five types of meningitis, which are as follows: Bacterial, Fungal, Non-infectious, Viral, as well as Parasitic.

Fact 2: Tell tale signs that you’ve contracted meningitis are as follows: upper respiratory, as well as gastrointestinal symptoms in the form of high fever, pounding headaches, and as well as loss of appetite. A person suffering from meningitis may also experience muscle pain, nasal congestion, vomiting, a stiff neck, as well as seizures.

Fact 3: There are about three types of bacteria that are responsible for 90% of bacterial meningitis, which are H. influenza type b, as well as Meningococcus, and Pneumococcus.

Fact 4: How does one transfer and contract the disease, you ask? Through person to person contact and respiratory secretions. People go about their daily lives carrying this bacteria, and they’re very fortunate to not suffer from the serious side of it all. The most common cause for ear pain would be none other than the bacteria Pneumococcus.

Fact 5: The older you get, the higher the chance of contracting meningococcal disease. Popular among adolescents as well as young adults, this illness is often mistaken for being a common flu or viral infection, and may lead to serious disability, and quite possibly death.

Fact 6: Meningitis operates through person to person contact, and the like. So it’s rather easy to piece together that enclosed spaces, as well as contact with a person who is suffering from it can lead to the spread of the virus. While bacterial meningitis is spread through respiratory secretions, meningococcal meningitis may be spread through air droplets as well as direct contact with a patient, although brief or casual contact doesn’t lead to infection.

Fact 7: This horrid disease has an equally terrifying cure. The Meningococcal vaccine, although promising fleeting side effects, is formulated to protect against the disease that kills roughly 10 percent of the youth who contract it and, while leaving another 11 to about 20 percent with insanely severe, long-term health concerns.

Fact 8: The disease is known to work swiftly within the body. The quick killer leaves you with about 24 to 48 hours, before its rapid growth renders an otherwise healthy individual or model citizen lying on the cold hard ground.

Fact 9: In every 5 people who suffer from Meningitis, 1 of them may be fortunate enough to survive. However, those who survive never leave unscathed, and more often than not, suffer from either of the following permanent consequences: amputation, scarring, brain damage, loss of hearing, as well as kidney damage.

Fact 10: Even through kissing and sharing food and utensils, you and your loved ones may be at risk of contracting the disease! The bacteria is able to spread itself via the exchange of saliva. According to the Textbook of Pediatric Infectious Disease, 3 out of 100,000 people suffer from it.