Meningitis Incidence.

Tuesday, 27 January 2004

Ceisteanna (638)

Seán Crowe

Ceist:

752 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of people who have been diagnosed with meningitis in each health board area for each of the past three years. [1934/04]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin)

There are two forms of meningitis, namely, bacterial meningitis and viral meningitis. Viral meningitis tends to be a milder disease than bacterial meningitis. The number of cases of bacterial meningitis and viral meningitis notified to the National Disease Surveillance Centre by health board area over the past three years is presented in tables 1 and 2, respectively.

Table 1. Number of cases of bacterial meningitis by health board area, 2001 to 2003, inclusive.

Health Board	2001	2002	2003*
ERHA	139	108	91
MHB	26	24	20
MWHB	31	32	28
NEHB	28	27	25
NWHB	20	16	9
SEHB	49	26	37
SHB	69	47	52
WHB	34	17	13
Total	396	297	275

*2003 figures still provisional

Table 2. Number of cases of viral meningitis by health board area, 2001-2003 inclusive

Health Board	2001	2002	2003*
ERHA	93	23	21
MHB	13	0	1
MWHB	9	1	0
NEHB	11	4	0
NWHB	5	2	1
SEHB	12	1	4
SHB	13	2	3
WHB	5	3	1
Total	161	36	31

*2003 figures still provisional

There has been a steady decline in the number of bacterial meningitis, including meningococcal septicaemia, cases notified each year since 2000, when 586 cases were reported nationally. This decline can largely be attributed to the success of the meningococcal group C — men C — vaccination campaign which commenced in 2000. In 2000, 139 cases of group C meningococcal disease were notified in Ireland. This declined to 35 in 2001, 14 in 2002 and just five group C cases in 2003. This represents an overall reduction of 96% in the number of group C cases notified in 2003, compared to 2000.

Following the increase in viral meningitis activity in 2000 and 2001, activity returned to baseline levels, namely, the level of activity normally expected, in 2002 and 2003. I understand from the National Disease Surveillance Centre that the higher than usual level of activity for viral meningitis in 2000-01 was also reported by the United Kingdom at the time. The increase in viral meningitis activity was attributed to certain strains of enteroviruses in circulation at that time.