Grant for work on meningitis

Press, 24 February 1977, Page 21

Grant for work on meningitis

P A Hamilton The Medical Research Council has granted $13,000 to the Massey University micro biology department for continued research into amoebic meningitis. Dr Tim Brown, and a research student, Mr Ray Cursons, have been studying the disease, and the M.R.C. grant will enable them to carry on their work. It will pay the salary of a full-time technician for two years. The technician will filter and examine samples of water from hot pools throughout the North Island, searching for the meningitis amoeba. This work would otherwise have to be done by one of the two men. Mr Cursons who is compiling information on the amoeba for a doctorate, and Dr Brown are collecting data from 10 hot pools. “We hope to be able to prove that the problem is aggravated by rainwater-

flooding," said Mr Cursons. “Of the pools we have tested, the ones with a recent history of flooding have shown a higher amoeba content." There have been six recorded deaths from amoebic meningitis in New Zealand. The last occurred in 1974, when Craig Drummond, aged 15, died in Rotorua Hospital after swimming in a pool on the banks of the Waikato River, near Taupo.

The amoeba enters the body through the nose, where it lodges in the nasal mucosa. The incubation period for the disease is about a week. The fi”st symptoms — a headache, sore throat and slight fever — should appear soon after the end of the second week.

By the time the symptoms appear, it is probably too late to do anything about it. The number of amoeba in the body is too great.

The victim will fall into a coma within a few days, and die soon afterwards.