Is Spinal meningitis viral or bacterial?
Spinal meningitis is a potentially deadly infection of the meninges, the protective tissue covering the brain and spinal cord. It can be caused by specific viruses, bacteria, or fungi that gets transmitted from person to person by sneezing, talking, kissing, or sharing food or drinks.
How do you get bacterial spinal meningitis?
Bacteria that enter the bloodstream and travel to the brain and spinal cord cause acute bacterial meningitis. But it can also occur when bacteria directly invade the meninges. This may be caused by an ear or sinus infection, a skull fracture, or — rarely — some surgeries.
How do you contract viral spinal meningitis?
Transmission of viral meningitis
- Spread through the bloodstream from an infection in another part of the body (the most common way)
- Contact with contaminated stool, which may occur when infected people do not wash their hands after a bowel movement or when they swim in a public swimming pool (for enteroviruses)
What is the survival rate for bacterial meningitis?
WHAT IS THE PROGNOSIS? Prognosis of meningitis depends on the cause. Untreated bacterial meningitis has a very high death rate. Even with appropriate treatment, the death rate from bacterial meningitis is about 15-20%, with a higher death rate associated with increasing age.
Which one is bigger a virus or a bacteria?
Bacteria are bigger and more complex than viruses, though they can still spread through the air. A bacterium is a single cell, and it can live and reproduce almost anywhere on its own: in soil, in water and in our bodies.
Can spinal meningitis cause problems later in life?
Meningitis and septicaemia can cause a range of disabilities and problems that can alter lives. After effects may be temporary or permanent, physical or emotional.
Why is it ineffective to treat viral disease with antibiotics?
Antibiotics cannot kill viruses because bacteria and viruses have different mechanisms and machinery to survive and replicate. The antibiotic has no “target” to attack in a virus. However, antiviral medications and vaccines are specific for viruses.
Why is it more difficult to treat viral infections than bacterial infections?
Compared to other pathogens, such as bacteria, viruses are minuscule. And because they have none of the hallmarks of living things — a metabolism or the ability to reproduce on their own, for example — they are harder to target with drugs.
Why are antibiotics successful to check bacterial infections but not viral infections?
Viruses insert their genetic material into a human cell’s DNA in order to reproduce. Antibiotics cannot kill viruses because bacteria and viruses have different mechanisms and machinery to survive and replicate. The antibiotic has no “target” to attack in a virus.