New meningitis test 'could save lives'

[Northerner]

A hospital A&E department in Northern Ireland is to start using a new, rapid test for meningitis that should speed up diagnosis and save lives.

Meningitis can kill in hours yet the current way to positively identify the infection takes about two days.

UK researchers say the new test that the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children will use gives results in under 60 minutes.

This should let doctors treat fast and accurately, rather than "just in case".

Speedy treatment is vital because the infection can quickly overwhelm the body, and symptoms may not be obvious until it is dangerously advanced.

At the moment, doctors rely on clinical judgement to decide whether antibiotics are urgently needed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41080944

 

[Lucy Honeychurch]

Good news, meningitis is every parents nightmare. My nephew was very ill with it in intensive care, fortunately he survived with no lasting damage. One of my friends lost her 2 year old son to it, it was devastating

 

[mikeyB]

60 minutes is too long a wait. When I was working in Maidstone a teenager came in with all the clinical signs of meningitis, bar the rash. He was given a bumful of penicillin and moved up one floor to an isolation ward. In the time it took him to be taken up in the lift he developed the classic widespread rash. You do not pig about waiting for tests. That bumful of penicillin saved his life.

 

[mikeyB]

I might add, that if modern doctors can't make a clinical diagnosis of meningitis in around 5 minutes, they shouldn't be doing the job.