Enterovirus meningitis is caused by the Coxsackie and ECHO viruses (ECHO), which, due to the similarity of their properties, are combined into a family of enteroviruses. The same group of microbes also includes poliovirus, which causes such a serious illness as poliomyelitis. There are many subtypes of these viruses: only Koksaki has 30 types, which are divided into 2 types - A and B, there are also about 25 types of ECHO viruses that can cause various clinical manifestations in humans.
Viruses, the causes of enteroviral meningitis, are not as harmless as some sources sometimes try to imagine. So, types 7 and 14 of the Coxsackie virus of group A can cause inflammation of the membranes of the brain and its substance (meningoencephalitis), which can be fatal, while the rest of group A causes milder serous meningitis. Group B of Coxsackie viruses is all dangerous in terms of the development of meningitis and meningoencephalitis. Since it is not possible to determine the exact type and type of cause of enteroviral meningitis right away, but only after a week or more from the onset of the disease, with the slightest suspicion, hospitalization in an infectious diseases hospital, sometimes in the intensive care unit of a hospital, is necessary.
How do viruses get into the body?
The viruses causing enteroviral meningitis enter the body in two ways:
a) airborne. In this case, the source of infection can be a healthy person (usually an adult) or a patient with such forms of enterovirus infection :
- herpetic sore throat ,
- flu-like infection
- enterovirus disease occurring with rubella-like rash,
- febrile pharyngitis,
- acute febrile lymphadenitis,
- intestinal form,
- meningitis or meningoencephalitis;
b) through dirty hands and common utensils - fecal-oral route. Not the last role in this distribution is played by flies.
With saliva, the virus is released into the environment especially actively at the very beginning of the disease, but its minimal spread continues for two weeks. He continues to get into feces for a month or a little less.
Who is most likely to get enterovirus meningitis?
Enterovirus serous meningitis does not occur in everyone who has a virus that can penetrate the meninges. In children up to six months of life, such a disease can not occur due to the protection of their maternal antibodies (enteroviruses in such small children very rarely cause only one form - encephalomyocarditis of newborns). The peak incidence occurs at the age of 2-5 years, the older the child, the less likely he is to get sick. After 14 years, already about 80% of children are immunized with those enteroviruses that are found in this area. But approximately every five years, microbes, the causes of enteroviral meningitis, mutate so much that there is a radically new species that no one is familiar with, and immunity has not yet been developed even in adults. There is also a chance of infection from another type of enterovirus carrier that came from a different location. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to relax and not be safe with regard to personal hygiene at any age.
Of course, not all children or adults affected by the Coxsackie or Echo virus will certainly get meningitis. It depends on the general resistance of the organism, and not only on the subspecies of the microbe: the more hardened and unreduced by preliminary stress or hypothermia, the less likely it is that damage to the nervous system will develop.