• Question: Is there a high risk group for contracting meningitis?

    Asked by bethancf to Lyn, Katy, Paul, PB on 27 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Peter Balfe

      Peter Balfe answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Not really, meningitis is a rare disease with sporadic infection, so it’s very hard to predict what is a high risk.
      The biggest at risk group are in the under 5s, whose immune system hasn’t yet matured, half of cases occur there. There’s also a second group of late teens/early twenties, where it is also frequent, but “frequent” is still only a few – less than 800 cases a year. About 400 in < 5s, 100 in teenagers (15 – 24) , the rest in the very elderly. The causative organisms are actually quite common, so why they suddenly result in disease in rare cases is something of a mystery.

    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Meningitis is an infectious disease, and there are two main factors that might determine how likely you are to contract it. One is how strong your immune system is – like Peter said, very young children and very old people are at higher risk of getting meningitis, mainly because their immune systems aren’t as strong.

      The second factor is proximity – how close you are to someone who’s got the disease. People in their late teens or early twenties are often at boarding school or university, where many people live together in the same room or the same building – this means that one person catching the disease can very quickly spread it all over the school. That’s why schools and universities that have dormitories are always on high alert for meningitis, and will quite often make everyone in the building have the medicine even if it is only one person who has the disease!

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 27 Jun 2013:

      Hi bethancf-

      generally speaking, meningitis- which can be caused by certain viruses and bacteria- is rare, and your likelihood of getting it is quite closely linked to how well your immune system is working. The most at risk groups (highest risk first) are:

      – under 5’s (half of all cases)
      – students(!)- a quarter of students carry the bacteria in their throats, compared to a tenth of the rest of us (no-one knows why!)
      – older people

      even then you have to get fairly close to an infected person.

      Got any more questions about meningitis? drop us a line…

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