Causes of serous meningitis: how can they become infected?

The term "serous meningitis" means that in the cerebrospinal fluid, that is, the cerebrospinal fluid of the patient, a picture of inflammation with a predominance of cells such as lymphocytes is observed. There is a situation where the protective barriers surrounding the brain and its shells become passable for microbes, which can cause exactly this type of inflammatory reaction.

Causes of serous meningitis

1) Viruses: herpes simplex, cytomegalovirus, varicella-zoster virus, Coxsackie enteroviruses and ECXO, Epstein-Barr virus, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, tick-borne encephalitis, influenza and some others. This cause of serous meningitis is the most common.

2) Specific bacteria: tubercle bacillus, syphilis pathogen, leptospirosis.

3) Fungal flora, for example, cryptococci. These causes of serous meningitis appear mainly with a decrease in immunity, for example, due to HIV infection (less often due to chemotherapy or a prolonged serious illness), since an organism with a normal protective system will not allow the fungus to enter the brain envelopes.

How can you "get" acute serous meningitis?

Viruses and bacteria enter the body in such ways:

1) Airborne droplets. So the main majority of viruses are transmitted: measles, rubella, mumps, chicken pox, viruses from the ARVI group. "Flies" through the air and a rod of tuberculosis, but on the shell of the brain, it comes from the hearth in the lungs, less often from another cluster of these bacteria.

2) Through unwashed hands, heat-poorly processed food (especially dairy products) and water (which is drunk or swallowed and swallowed). So you can "buy" enteroviruses and some other pathogens.

3) Through wounds on the skin and microcracks. So penetrates to the person Leptospira, treponema (the causative agent of syphilis).

4) Through the bites of insects or arthropods. So the tick-borne encephalitis virus , and also some other viruses, which, fortunately, almost do not occur in our region, get caught.

There are viruses-causes of serous meningitis, which have multiple transmission paths. These are herpes simplex viruses, as well as its "colleagues" - cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr viruses. They can get infected by contact (by getting the contents of the vesicles on the skin of another person), by airborne way, through kisses, through sexual intercourse, by transfusion of blood from the carrier to the one who does not have the virus (these are usually children, since adults almost completely Are infected with the herpes virus). They can also get to the developing fetus during pregnancy if the mother either only got infected during this period, or the baby was born through the birth canal during an exacerbation of herpes virus infection on the genital tract.

Prevention of serous meningitis

Knowing the causes of serous meningitis, you can to some extent prevent his appearance. How to do it?

1. Prophylactic vaccinations. Routine vaccination protects against measles, rubella, mumps, poliomyelitis, enterovirus infection: if a child becomes ill with one of these diseases, then it transfers it more easily, and the likelihood of such a complication as meningitis decreases.
2. Compliance with hygiene rules: washing hands before meals and toilet bowl, using personal utensils and towels in the children's team.
3. Use only boiled water and milk. Do not eat foods (especially lactic acid) with expired shelf life.
4. To teach the child not to swallow water during bathing, since most meningitis is "brought" from the sea, and it is children and adolescents.
5. Teach a child not to communicate with people who are coughing, sneezing, who have a stuffy nose or, conversely, a lacrimation or a runny nose. It is also necessary in families to acquire the habit of using adult masks to wear a mask, and not to communicate closely and not to kiss their child at the slightest sign of herpetic infection ("colds" on the lips or near the nose).
6. If there are familiar children who have suffered an infectious mononucleosis, it is not necessary to communicate with them closely for a long time: the virus stands out with saliva up to one and a half years from the moment of the transferred disease.
7. Although the causes of serous meningitis are known and prevent their entry into the body is 100% impossible, you can try to learn from childhood to a healthy lifestyle and tempered, so that even if you get to a person, the microbe could not penetrate the shells of his brain.