Cape
24 March 2009
The Eastern Cape health department on Tuesday called for calm following what
it said was a wave of needless panic over meningitis in the province. There
have been two meningitis deaths in the province this month, of a two years old
girl on 14 March and 16 years old boy in East London at the weekend.
Spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said provincial health facilities had been deluged by
calls from anxious parents.
He said 11 teenage girls, fellow pupils of the dead boy, were rushed to
hospital on Monday when they complained of meningitis-like symptoms. However
nine of them had since been discharged, only two being kept for the results of
tests.
On Tuesday, 17 children from another area were also taken to hospital for
examination, only to be discharged.
"People must go to a health facility if they experience real symptoms,"
Kupelo said. "But what we have experienced over the past two days was a panic.
What we are seeing now is just (the results of) imagination."
Kupelo said the department would send psychologists into those communities
in a bid to deal with people's fears.
He said the department's outbreak response team was still monitoring the
situation. He emphasised there was no need for everyone in a community where
there had been a case, to receive prophylaxis, only close contacts of that
person. He also said anyone who did experience the classic symptoms of
meningitis - a temperature, stiffness of the neck, headache, vomiting and skin
rash, should rather go for diagnosis to a provincial clinic or hospital than to
a private doctor.
Issued by: Eastern Cape Provincial Government
24 March 2009
Source: Eastern Cape Provincial Government (http://www.ecdoh.gov.za)
