What is it about?
This is a description of a case of Meningococcal W conjunctivitis in a young man in Melbourne. It reminds us how difficult diagnosing rare and dangerous disease can be in Emergency Medicine and how there is increasing meningococcal disease in Australia at the moment. With a vaccine now available, it hopefully reminds people to get themselves, or their loved ones immunised against this disease.
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Why is it important?
This is an important reminder that not all conjunctivitis is viral and that a few patients need investigation and treatment for potentially invasive bacterial disease that can threaten vision and lives.
Perspectives
This article allowed a trainee doctor, or medical student, the opportunity to participate in academic medicine and advocate for improvements in public health. It generated interest from Australian journalists and generated an article in a newspaper about why parents should get their children immunised. This was timely as a broad meningococcal immunisation program (including the W strain) for children is just being rolled out.
Katie Walker
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Meningococcal W outbreak in Victoria: an atypical presentation of conjunctivitis in a young adult in Melbourne, Australia, Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, May 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/ceo.12972.
You can read the full text:
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