The rates of incidence of the two potentially lethal bacterial strains of meningitis have been found to be consistently dropping over the past few years. This has been made possible only because of the aggressive and widespread implementation of the US and Canadian government's vaccination program.
Especially the meningococcal form of the disease has stopped occurring in as many kids now as had been afflicted by the dangerous illness before the immunization program was begun. It is of note to mention that children are more affected by the Neisseria meningitides bacterial strain.
Another good effect that the vaccination program of these two countries has brought about is the number of new infections in adults because of the bacterial and infectious strain of meningitis. This is attributed to the herd effect, as the immunization helps prevent spreading of the infection from one member to another in groups of people who stay in a close community.
The new meningococcal-C vaccine developed has helped stave off the spread of infection from older infected children to others in their social contact. With people also understanding the positive effects of using vaccination against meningitis, more and more of them are coming forward lately to get vaccinated. They can clearly weigh the benefits of such a move in large numbers.
However, the fight against the streptococcal bacterial strain of meningitis has not received as much success through vaccination. It has been found that some individuals have contracted the dangerous illness through this route, despite vaccination.
For patients afflicted with streptococcal meningitis, treatment through medication has seen better results. However, the difficulty with this strain of meningitis is that it is resistant to several types of antibiotics and only some higher generation antibiotics have been found to work against it.
Novartis developed MenB vaccine has been found to be successful in protecting infants not less than six months old against the potentially fatal multiple strains of the meningococcal B bacteria. In 2006, many children in Europe had fallen ill because of this bacterial strain of meningitis.
The Meningitis Foundation of America (MFA) has taken another initiative besides vaccination to help arrest the infectious forms of bacterial meningitis from spreading through inadvertent sharing of drinking water bottles. It has come up with a new Container Identification Scratch System (C.I.S.S) on water bottles used by children at sporting events.
The initiative uses a label on each bottle that carries the scratch system on it. Each child needs to scratch the label to identify his own bottle as each C.I.S.S. label carries a uniquely different number. The MFA states that the system can also be used on soft drink cans at social gatherings to identify each different user's soft drink uniquely. It also states that the system also helps to reduce the wastage of soft drinks due to confusion over the identity of a specific user's drink.
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