No vaccine for meningitis type that killed teacher

ELEVEN people died from the most common form of bacterial meningitis in the first six months of last year, according to preliminary figures from the Central Statistics Office. Two years previously the same number of deaths from the disease was recorded in 12 months.

Unlike other types of bacterial meningitis, there is no vaccine against it.

Last week 20 year old Gillian Brennan, a teacher from Ennis, Co Clare, had been out of work with a sore throat. She died at about 8 a.m. on Wednesday.

A statement from the Mater Hospital in Dublin said the post mortem examination found evidence of blood poisoning because of infection by meningococeus bacteria, specifically strain B of the bacteria.

The bacteria damages the blood vessels, which then allow blood to leak into the body cavity. Falling blood pressure results in organ failure.

Yesterday the Department of Health clarified the situation on vaccination against the disease.

There are three main types of bacterial meningitis: meningococcal, haemophilus and pneumococcal. Vaccines are available against the haemophilus influenzae type B, (or Hib for short) and these can usually be administered to children along with diphtheria, tetanus and polio vaccines.

Pneumococcal meningitis can be vaccinated against, but this is usually considered only for people at particularly high risk those, for example, with sickle cell disease or whose spleen has been removed.

The meningococcus has three strains, known as A, B and C. According to a Dublin GP, there is a vaccine for the A and C strains although these are very uncommon.

It would cost a patient around £17, plus the cost of the doctor's fee, he said.

"There is no vaccine for the form of meningitis which killed [Gillian Brennan]," said a Department of Health spokeswoman. The Department includes meningococcal blood poisoning as a form of meningitis.

There is also a viral form of meningitis, which is usually not life threatening, although the symptoms can be similar.

One in 10 cases of bacterial meningitis may be fatal, according to the Department, while one in seven may cause deafness or brain damage. "There is no proven, effective, safe vaccine for the most common meningococcal strain, strain B," the Department spokeswoman said.

She said the large increase in the number of bacterial meningitis cases reported last year, of more than 55 per cent on 1994, may not be evidence of a rise in the incidence of the disease. It could reflect better reporting of cases by doctors.

The British medical magazine The Lancet yesterday published the findings of Dr Crispin Best, a consultant in Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Sick Children, who successfully treated four children suffering from meningococcal blood poisoning. A spokesman for Dr Best said the filtration machine, which cleaned the blood of the children, was "not a cure, but it's clinically very interesting".

The children, aged between two and 12, were admitted to the hospital in the last 10 months and survived the disease. "Statistically, sadly, you would expect three of those children to survive," the spokesman said. Two of the children lost a leg below the knee, one lost toes from both feet and the 12 year old girl has kidney problems, he said.

The spokesman said the hospital saw about six cases a year, and there are approximately 60 cases a year in Britain. "Thank God it's very rare, because it's very horrible."