By:Jeff Lipton
Malkie Spitz of Woodmere endured three days of sheer terror as her 6-year-old son, Avi, battled the serious illness of viral meningitis in the hospital earlier this month.
But Avi is not alone in his affliction. Several Five Towners have been stricken by viral meningitis in recent weeks, which appears, by some accounts, to be spreading through the community in unusually large numbers, although an exact count is difficult to ascertain. The disease is extremely debilitating, and many of its victims have been hospitalized when they became dangerously dehydrated and required intravenous fluids.
Viral meningitis, also known as nonbacterial meningitis, is an infection of the meninges, a thin lining covering the brain and the spinal cord. It commonly occurs in the summer with 500 to 700 cases reported in New York State per year. According to the New York State Health Department, outbreaks are rare.
Fever, headache, stiff neck, fatigue, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea are the common symptoms among its victims, who must let the disease run its course because there is no medication or antibiotics that can be taken for it. Unlike bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis is rarely fatal.
My son is fine now, but he was very sick,Spitz said last Friday afternoon. He had headaches, vomiting, and a stiff neck.
Now she believes her 5-year-old daughter, Miri, was coming down with similar symptoms, catching the illness from her brother. Spitz said her pediatrician in Cedarhurst had treated 10 similar cases the same week. I also have a friend who is hospitalized,she said.
Dr. Joseph Rozenbaum of the Long Island Pediatric Group in Cedarhurst said doctors there have seen three cases in recent weeks.
It does happen in clusters,he said. Some summers we see none and some summers we see two or three. The predominant feature is vomiting and headaches. Thank God, it doesn't have long-lasting effects. Kids can go on without knowing they even have it.
The disease is most common in children, but Etty Levy of North Woodmere said she and her husband contracted the disease almost at the same time. Both needed hospitalization; she has recovered while her husband was still on an I.V. at home. It's crazy, just crazy,Levy said. We both got it at the same time and [the doctors] said they've never seen anything like that before.
It started last Tuesday night [Aug. 14],she said. It woke me up in the middle of the night with a terrible headache. I went to Long Island Jewish Hospital and they said they had seven cases in the last week. I had a sore neck and lower back pain.
The Levys have no clue how they got the disease. Most cases are due to enteroviruses that are passed in the stool and those with viral meningitis are instructed to wash their hands thoroughly after going to the bathroom.
According to Nassau County Department of Health, six cases of viral meningitis have been reported so far this year, compared with seven for the same time last year and 10 the year before that. But its victims feel that the numbers, from what they are hearing, should be much higher than what is being reported. Since it could be a public health concern, all viral meningitis cases must be reported to the health department.
Dr. Sunil Sood of North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset said the rise in the number of cases is expected in the summer and, despite the number of people claiming to have become infected, stopped short of calling it an outbreak. It is most unusual to have three cases in a small geographic area,Sood said.
He said viral meningitis is almost never fatal and is considered a benign disease. It is not unusual for family members to get it from other family members,he said.
Doctors perform tests to make sure that the patient does not have bacterial meningitis, which is a more severe disease, and a spinal tap is performed, where fluid is taken from the spine to make that determination. If you have those symptoms, you should go to your doctor because they could be more serious,Sood said.
Symptoms generally appear within one week of exposure and it often runs its course in two weeks. Mosquito-borne viruses account for a few cases of viral meningitis each yea`r, but in these cases, doctors have ruled that out. West Nile virus, which causes an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord, shows similar symptoms.
