Miss-Delectable
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Belfast Telegraph
A vaccination programme aimed at protecting children against one of the most dangerous strains of meningitis was launched in Northern Ireland on Monday. Doctors are confident that the scheme will see an 80% reduction in such cases.
The disease affects 400 children each year in the UK and deafness is one of the permanent and devastating side effects of the illness that can strike with deadly speed.
The senior medical officer, Dr Lorraine Doherty, has said parents should not be concerned about their child receiving an additional vaccine on top of other inoculations such as MMR that have caused so much controversy.
There is no evidence to suggest that multiple doses of vaccine overload the immune system.
My own deafness happened when I was a boy of 11 and staying with my family at an uncle's farm in a village near Carrickfergus, where some of the water supply came from a pump in the basement.
A suddenly raging temperature following a cycling accident saw me rushed to Larne Fever Hospital where I was diagnosed with typhoid and kept in an isolation ward for six weeks.
The last thing I remember was the sound of the nurse switching off the ward light before drifting into unconsciousness.
My parents were never given any official notification that my deafness had been caused by the fever and that is probably because communication between doctor and patient in those days was very basic.
But many years later, in conversation with a senior ENT consultant from Belfast City Hospital, he told me he was almost 100% certain that my complete loss of hearing in boyhood had been triggered by meningitis.
The dictionary describes meningitis as a serious disease in which there is inflammation of the meninges, caused by viral or bacterial infection, and marked by intense headache and fever, sensitivity to light, and muscular rigidity. Exactly what I was experiencing before the rush to hospital.
When I awoke from my delirium I had changed from a happy and energetic 11-year-old schoolboy into a stone-deaf cripple who was allowed to crawl about the floor of the hospital until my strength returned.
The inflammation of the brain that had caused my sudden loss of hearing had also destroyed the balance mechanism stored in our ears and walking upright was a new skill to be learned.
By the time my parents brought me home I had gradually got back to normal - but balancing is now dependent on my eyes and on a very dark night I still stagger like a drunken man!
All schoolchildren, boys as well as girls, now get the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab but as yet there is no firm evidence that the inoculation has had any effect on the number of deaf children being born. Expectant mothers have always feared rubella, or German measles, as it used to be called, in the early days of pregnancy, and doctors have warned about the growing danger of a measles epidemic as parents vacillate over the MMR safety. Mumps caused my wife's deafness at five.
All children under the age of two in Northern Ireland will now be vaccinated against the pneumococcal bug and there will be a catch-up campaign to offer the vaccine to those between two months and two years. The disease can strike with lightning speed and causes the death of 50 children each year in the UK.
A vaccination programme aimed at protecting children against one of the most dangerous strains of meningitis was launched in Northern Ireland on Monday. Doctors are confident that the scheme will see an 80% reduction in such cases.
The disease affects 400 children each year in the UK and deafness is one of the permanent and devastating side effects of the illness that can strike with deadly speed.
The senior medical officer, Dr Lorraine Doherty, has said parents should not be concerned about their child receiving an additional vaccine on top of other inoculations such as MMR that have caused so much controversy.
There is no evidence to suggest that multiple doses of vaccine overload the immune system.
My own deafness happened when I was a boy of 11 and staying with my family at an uncle's farm in a village near Carrickfergus, where some of the water supply came from a pump in the basement.
A suddenly raging temperature following a cycling accident saw me rushed to Larne Fever Hospital where I was diagnosed with typhoid and kept in an isolation ward for six weeks.
The last thing I remember was the sound of the nurse switching off the ward light before drifting into unconsciousness.
My parents were never given any official notification that my deafness had been caused by the fever and that is probably because communication between doctor and patient in those days was very basic.
But many years later, in conversation with a senior ENT consultant from Belfast City Hospital, he told me he was almost 100% certain that my complete loss of hearing in boyhood had been triggered by meningitis.
The dictionary describes meningitis as a serious disease in which there is inflammation of the meninges, caused by viral or bacterial infection, and marked by intense headache and fever, sensitivity to light, and muscular rigidity. Exactly what I was experiencing before the rush to hospital.
When I awoke from my delirium I had changed from a happy and energetic 11-year-old schoolboy into a stone-deaf cripple who was allowed to crawl about the floor of the hospital until my strength returned.
The inflammation of the brain that had caused my sudden loss of hearing had also destroyed the balance mechanism stored in our ears and walking upright was a new skill to be learned.
By the time my parents brought me home I had gradually got back to normal - but balancing is now dependent on my eyes and on a very dark night I still stagger like a drunken man!
All schoolchildren, boys as well as girls, now get the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jab but as yet there is no firm evidence that the inoculation has had any effect on the number of deaf children being born. Expectant mothers have always feared rubella, or German measles, as it used to be called, in the early days of pregnancy, and doctors have warned about the growing danger of a measles epidemic as parents vacillate over the MMR safety. Mumps caused my wife's deafness at five.
All children under the age of two in Northern Ireland will now be vaccinated against the pneumococcal bug and there will be a catch-up campaign to offer the vaccine to those between two months and two years. The disease can strike with lightning speed and causes the death of 50 children each year in the UK.