How easy is it to catch meningitis?

Question

You hear all these stories about how you can catch meningitus and how fast it kills you. Apparently it is contagiouse. But where do we catch it. From other people? from airporne pathogens? from surface germs? If we catch it from eachother and it kills quickly then how come we dont have meningitus outbreaks? How is it so easily caught yet so rare?

Answer 1

There are two types of meningitis, bacterial and viral. Viral meningitis would be caught the way any other virus is, through the air and the bacterial usually with direct contact with a person who has it or an item that they have recently touched. I haven't ever heard stories about how fast meningitis kills people or how contagious it is. I have known 2 people in all my 60 yrs that have had it and both are fine now.

Answer 2

Thats because it is really not that easily caught! Many different organisms cause meningitis, and in a developed country like USA, it is actually very difficult to catch meningitis. Most of the people that get it are immunocompromised. Where their immune ssystem is weak and it cant fight off the infection. For example: Babies, Elderly, HIV/AIDS patients and a variety of other. Many doctors go their entire career without ever seeing meningitis.

Answer 3

meningitis is transmitted hand to mouth, much like a common cold. And we do have meningitis outbreaks, but due to the advanced technology of our healthcare, we don't often lose someone to the ravages of meningitis any more, in other countries tho, it is almost always fatal. It is not rare, it happens quite frequently actually.

Answer 4

its not rare. but it can be prevented w/a vaccine that schools and doctors push on people to prevent the spread of the disease. you can catch it from drinking after someone that has it , kissing someone w/it, or coming into contact w/something that has the germs on it