By Constantinos Psillides
A nine-month-old baby girl died in the early hours of Wednesday, two days after she was admitted to the Makarios Hospital with symptoms of bacterial meningitis, according to a statement issued by the health ministry.
The ministry assured the public that there was no wider health risk and that all containment measures had been taken.
Dr Thanasis Athanasiou, a doctor at the child intensive care unit doctor at the Makarios Hospital, told Sigma TV that the baby’s condition had deteriorated rapidly and that she was already in a bad shape when she was admitted.
Athanasiou said that the little girl was admitted at around 10.30am on Monday, presenting “severe sepsis and multiple organ failure.
“We put her on mechanical support but by 12.50am on Wednesday she was unfortunately gone,” he said.
He said meningitis at that age had a 30 per cent mortality rate “and is a doctor’s worst nightmare.”
Symptoms of meningitis, in both children and adults, include fever, vomiting and headaches.
According to Athanasiou, the child was dropped off by her parents to her grandmother in Limassol on Monday morning but was soon rushed to her paediatrician because she was vomiting. The paediatrician took her to a private clinic in Limassol who in turn sent her by ambulance to the Makarios Hospital in Nicosia.
Athanasiou told Sigma TV the child had contracted a bacterial strain of meningitis. He assured that all protective measures were taken, including isolating the girl from other children and treating those who had come into contact with her.
The girl’s family though, is not convinced that meningitis was the cause of death. Her father is taking the hospital to court, claiming that they were trying to cover the case up and demanded that a post mortem be performed. “If they are that sure that my child died from meningitis then why didn’t they said so on her chart? Why did they try to hide it if they are that sure?,” the father told Sigma TV, adding that when he visited to the police station to lodge an official complaint, one of the state pathologists tried to dissuade him from requesting a post mortem, saying that “performing an autopsy on a person that died from meningitis is a dangerous procedure.”
Athanasiou said the most efficient protection against meningitis is vaccination against the most common strains of the disease, which the girl would have received when she would have turned 12 months old. “This is a very rare occasion. There are about three reported incidents per 100,000 children. Unfortunately when a disease like that strikes in that age it progresses rapidly and leaves very little room for action. I have told you before: this disease is our worst nightmare.”
He also remarked on the increasing anti-vaccination movement, stressing that not vaccinating children against diseases was a, “very, very big mistake.”
