It is thought that up to 25 per cent of young adults carry the bacteria responsible for meningococcal meningitis without showing any symptoms of the disease. Of this 25 per cent, less than three in 100,000 will actually go on to develop a fully fledged inflammation of the meninges, the soft membrane surrounding the brain. Direct exchange of bodily fluids with a full-blown infectious case is the surest way to guarantee infection.
You have to be fairly unlucky to contract it.
The earliest signs are common enough to make diagnosis difficult. The symptoms (fever, headache and nausea, occasionally accompanied by a stiff neck) can easily be mistaken for cold or flu. Within anything from a few hours to a few days, however, infection of the spinal cord and the fluid surrounding the brain begins to present a new set of symptoms.
By this time, there is sometimes a rash on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet or chest that does not fade when pressed. Extreme sensitivity to light may occur. Mental disorientation, vomiting and high fever indicate that the process of septicaemia, or systemic blood poisoning, has begun.
Unfortunately, by the time any moderately observant fool can recognize these symptoms, time for the patient has begun to run out.
Justin presented unmistakably classic symptoms of bacterial meningitis to the paramedics who arrived within ten minutes of his collapse, which meant he was in imminent danger of brain damage and death. Without moving him, they inserted a needle into the cephalic vein of his right arm, attached a drip of ampicillin and chloramphenicol, and prepared to transport him to hospital.
The medics took one look at the vomit on Peter’s hands and clothes, and took him along for treatment. They left Coach with strict instructions to compile a list of boys at practice and present it to the health investigator who would contact him within the hour.
Phoning ahead to A & E with a report on Justin’s condition, the medics lifted the unconscious boy and his drip on to a collapsible stretcher, transferred the stretcher to the back of the ambulance, shut the doors, activated the siren and set off. The entire incident, from the moment of Justin’s collapse to the instant the ambulance disappeared from sight, took less than twenty minutes.
His teammates stood staring at the corner around which the ambulance had disappeared. If a flying saucer had landed on the track, taken one of them prisoner, and flown off into outer space, they could not have felt more shocked. Nobody knew how to react. Even Coach was speechless.
At the hospital, Peter telephoned his mother, who phoned Justin’s parents. Within half an hour, they had all gathered at A & E.
Back at the held the subdued boys drifted off in ones and twos. For a longer time than was strictly necessary, Coach remained where he was, staring transfixed at the place on the ground where Justin had fallen.
Christ, he thought. My one big chance for next year’s county championship and the kid drops dead.
That bastard fate has one hell of a sense of humour.