Meningitis c:connection to bcg. . .

Dear WDDTY:I would like WDDTY vol 10 no 11 on meningitis C vaccine to go to our local newspaper.

There have been two cases of meningitis at the Bognor Regis Community College in the last couple of months, so everyone is clammering for the vaccination. A 14 year old boy died (his brother had just been vaccinated) and a teacher is very ill.

What I would like to know and daren't ask is how many cases of meningitis were there at the school before they started the vaccination programme?

Also, it would be interesting to know whether the boy that died had recently had his BCG vaccination. Name supplied, Bognor Regis....

. . . Or maybe a connection with head lice

Dear WDDTY:

I have just read your article on the meningitis C vaccine and found it very interesting, as I am a retired nurse.

I nursed meningococcal meningitis and all other forms of meningitis back in the 1950s and, what is more, many of those children survived. I have been wondering lately if anyone has looked into a possible link between the control or not of head lice and any connection with meningitis.

You see, it appeared to me that as head lice decreased in this country, the incidence of meningitis also appeared to decrease. But as head lice have again been increasing over the last 10 years, so has there been an increase in meningitis. Maybe this is too simple a link for the experts to make. HA Christopher, Hayling Island, Hampshire.....