HÀ NỘI — The National Hospital for Tropical Diseases has received the second patient contracting meningitis in Hà Nội since early this year.

The 18-year-old female patient living on Duy Tân Street in Cầu Giấy District was taken to hospital last Sunday with symptoms of high fever and subsequently went into a coma, the Dân Việt online newspaper reported.

Nguyễn Trung Cấp, deputy head of the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases’ Emergency Office, said the patient’s condition had initially shown signs of improvement after a few days of being treated in hospital.

The patient is a student of a foreign language centre in Cầu Giấy, which has some 70 students. Doctors of the hospital have informed the Hà Nội Preventive Medicine Centre to pray chemicals and sterilize the centre and surrounding areas, he said.

Two classmates of the patient, who suffered from high fever for a couple of days, have been isolated for being tested, he said.

Cấp said the meningococcal disease is caused by the Neisseria meningitidis bacterium. The bacteria are carried in the throat and sometimes, for reasons not fully understood, can overwhelm the body’s defences, allowing the infection to spread through the blood to the brain.

If not treated in time, the patient can die, he said.

The first patient of meningitis was a 30-year-old male from Bắc Từ Liêm District, hospitalized in March.

Trần Đắc Phu, head of the Preventive Medicine Department under the Ministry of Health, said meningitis can spread widely, especially in winter and spring.

Phu said vaccination is one of the best preventive measures against the meningococcal disease. He recommended people go to medical stations to be vaccinated against meningitis. — VNS