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Doctors believe virus has got through to brain through a small hole in his skull

By Lucy Laing

Last updated at 4:46 PM on 21st February 2012

Fighting fit: Seamus has not lost his sight or hearing despite having suffered meningitis six times

A six-year-old boy has beaten the killer brain bug meningitis every year since his birth, astounding experts.

Seamus Rafferty has been left with epilepsy and a tremor in his hands because so many blood vessels have been damaged, but he has luckily escaped any brain damage and hasn’t lost his sight or hearing.

His mother Caiomhe Rafferty, 31, who is married to Chris, 34, said: ‘The doctors are all amazed that Seamus has beaten meningitis so many times.

‘It is a miracle that he’s still with us - but he’s such a little fighter. He never lets it beat him.I can’t believe he’s still here.’

Seamus was first struck with the bug in May 2006, when he was just ten months old. He started suffering with a high temperature and a fit whilst he was sat on his mother’s knee.

Mrs Rafferty, who lives in Keady, Co Armagh, said: ‘I’d taken him to the doctors who said that he had a stomach bug and to take him home, which I did.

‘But as I was sitting with him on my knee he suddenly started having a fit. So I rang the ambulance straight away. I was terrified about what was happening to him.’

The ambulance rushed Seamus to Craigavern Hospital, Co Armagh, and a lumbar puncture showed that he was suffering from streptococcal meningitis. The doctors pumped him full of antibiotics to try and save him.

Mrs Rafferty said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when it was diagnosed as meningitis. I just had to hope that he would pull through.’

After seven days in hospital, Seamus made a recovery and the couple took him back home. But then just six months later was ill again and this time he had a rash on his body.

 

Mrs Rafferty said: ‘I’d taken him to the doctors as he was off-colour, but then after I’d driven home, I lifted him out of his car seat and I noticed the rash on his body. It had literally appeared on the drive home from the doctor’s surgery.

‘I knew that meningitis caused a rash, but I never thought it would be, because he had only had it six months ago. I just thought it couldn’t possibly be happening to him again.

‘I put him straight back in the car seat and rushed back to the surgery. They gave him antibiotics straight away and called an ambulance.’

Mother Caiomhe said her son survived as they rushed him to hospital quickly each time he exhibited symptoms

Seamus was rushed back into hospital where the doctors diagnosed him with meningitis - but this time it was pneumococcal meningitis - a different strain than before.

Mrs Rafferty said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when the doctors told me he had meningitis for a second time. It was different strains too, so he had just been incredibly unlucky. He was only a year old, and again he was fighting for his life.’

Luckily Seamus responded to treatment and after two weeks in hospital he was allowed home again.

Since then he has been struck down with the bug another four times, in October 2008, January 2009, October 2010 and most recently, January 2011.

Mrs Rafferty said: ‘It just strikes so quickly, but after the second time, I’ve recognised the symptoms each time we’ve rushed him straight to hospital. So he’s been treated incredibly quickly, and I believe that is what has saved his life.

‘The fifth time he got it, he was jumping on the sofa at 9.30am. Half an hour later he was complaining of the bright lights and an hour later he was having convulsions. So he goes downhill with it so fast.

‘It’s just amazing that he has survived it so many times.’

Doctors have discovered a small hole in his skull, and believe this may be how the virus is getting through each time. In December he underwent an operation at Belfast Children’s Hospital where surgeons located the hole and blocked it.

They are hoping that this may prevent him from getting meningitis again.

Mrs Rafferty said: 'We are hoping that the operation has been a success and he won’t get it again, but we just have to wait and see.'

In December, Seamus had a hole in his skull blocked during an operation at Belfast Children's Hospital

She added that her son had been incredibly lucky not to suffer many of the meningitis complications.

'It did affect his balance one time and he walked with his head tilted to the left for six months, but that gradually righted itself,' she said.

'He’s such a happy little boy and it never lets it get him down. After his operation he asked me if he was fixed now, and we just have to hope that he doesn’t get it again.

'Beating meningitis six times by the age of six is enough for anyone.'

A spokeswoman for the Meningitis Trust, who have provided Seamus with an Ipad to catch up with his education, said: 'Seamus’s case is unique. We are not aware of any other child in the UK who has had meningitis this many times.'

 

Read more here:
Boy, 6, survives meningitis a record SIX times after virus gets in through hole in his head

FAIRWAY, KS (KCTV) -

Hepatitis C deaths are on the rise, according to reports, and people might be surprised to hear who is contracting the disease.

At one point, it was recommended that only those with previous high-risk behavior, such as those who experimented with drugs and needles, be tested for hepatitis C. But now, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said they are seeing a certain age group is at risk.

The CDC recommends that those born between the years 1946 to 1964 be screened for hepatitis C. Their reasoning is because the CDC said they have seen an increase in the liver-attacking disease in Baby Boomers, largely because injection drug use was frequent in this age group, and even one-time exposure to injection drug use carries a high risk.

"Those Baby Boomers are now aging and since hep C is a disease that has a latency period of 20 to 40 years, it takes that long to develop symptoms," said Dr. Fredric Regenstein with Saint Luke's Health System.

Regenstein, a liver transplant doctor at St. Luke's Health System, said the disease has struck more patients than the well-known AIDS virus.

"It's a very, very common disease. It's the No. 1 reason why we see so many liver transplants," he said.

Hepatitis is a viral infection that can cause swelling and inflammation of the liver and can lead to damage of the organ, cancer and death.

But the good news is, it is curable.

The treatment can be costly with amounts up to $48,000 for a six- to 12-month supply of drugs and it's a very challenging treatment. But Regenstein said medication is improving and testing is critical.

"This virus can be cured. Once it's suppressed, it has nowhere to go," he said.

A vaccine for hepatitis B has been recommended for all infants since the early 1990s, eliminating its prevalence among younger generations. Hepatitis C wasn't discovered until 1989 and has no vaccine.

Two-thirds of people with hepatitis C are unaware that they have the virus, because it takes a few decades to show itself.

Because of this shocking realization, federal health officials are considering whether Baby Boomers should get a one-time blood test to check if their livers harbor this ticking time bomb.

The CDC also recommends even those who may have gotten tattoos or blood transfusions years ago should be tested for hepatitis C.

Copyright 2012 KCTV (Meredith Corp.)  All rights reserved.

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Hepatitis C surpasses HIV as killer, baby boomers most at risk

(An electron micrograph of the hepatitis C virus.)

By Lynne Adkins

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A new study indicates that one in every 33 baby boomers has the Hepatitis C virus, and many don’t even know they have this liver destroying disease.

Federal health officials say Hepatitis C is now killing more people than the AIDS virus, and most are over 45 years of age.

Dr. Robert Bettiker, associate professor of medicine in infectious diseases at Temple University School of Medicine, says that once symptoms appear, the liver is already damaged.

He says the major symptoms include “pain in the right upper quadrant (of your abdomen) that goes on for days or months. Your eyes might turn yellow, you might start bleeding a lot if you get a cut, and the veins in your esophagus can get really big and can rupture.”

Dr. Bettiker says if you had a blood transfusion before 1990 (when routine screening for hepatitis C in donated blood began) or have ever used intravenous drugs, you should tell your doctor. A blood test can determine if you’ve been exposed to the deadly virus, and early treatment could be effective.

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Excerpt from:
Hepatitis C Surpasses AIDS As Killer, Hitting Baby-Boom Generations Hardest

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Hepatitis C has surpassed HIV as a killer of U.S. adults, and screening all "baby boomers" could be one way to stem the problem, according to two new government studies.

Hepatitis C is a liver infection caused by a virus of the same name that is usually passed through contact with infected blood. An estimated 75 to 85 percent of infections become chronic, which can eventually cause serious diseases like cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) and liver cancer.

In one of the new studies, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that by 2007, hepatitis C was killing more Americans than HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS.

In 2007, hepatitis C killed 15,100 Americans, accounting for 0.6 percent of all deaths that year. That compared with a little over 12,700 deaths related to HIV.

Those numbers are based on death certificates, and almost certainly underestimate the real scope, according to the CDC. Compared with HIV, hepatitis C infection is more likely to still be unrecognized at the time of a person's death.

"Hepatitis C mortality has, regrettably, been on the rise for a number of years," said Dr. John Ward, director of the CDC's viral hepatitis division and an author of the new study.

But, he told Reuters Health, "many of those deaths could be prevented."

Of the estimated 3.2 million Americans with chronic hepatitis infection, about half of them don't know it, according to the CDC.

That's because the initial infection causes no symptoms in most cases. Instead, the virus silently damages the liver over the years, and people may only discover they are infected when they develop irreversible liver cirrhosis.

Chronic hepatitis C is most common in "baby boomers" -- about two thirds of U.S. infections are in people born between 1945 and 1964, Ward's team notes in their report, which is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

That predominance among boomers has a lot to do with casual injection-drug use back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, since sharing tainted needles is a major route for passing on the virus.

Some people also contracted hepatitis C through blood transfusions during that era. Since 1992, all blood donations in the U.S. have been tested for hepatitis C.

Baby boomers with hepatitis C are now getting to an age where the consequences of the infection would be evident, said Dr. Harvey Alter, a researcher with the National Institutes of Health who wrote an editorial on the new studies.

"The big issue is that most people with chronic infection are still not identified," Alter told Reuters Health.

Right now, health officials recommend that certain people at increased risk have blood tests to be screened for hepatitis C. That includes anyone who's used injection drugs, people who received blood transfusions or organ transplants before 1992 and people with HIV.

"But that approach hasn't been very effective," Alter said.

Another option, Ward said, would be to screen all baby boomers.

Experts are only seriously considering that option now because of recent advances in hepatitis C treatment.

Before 1990, the infection was virtually incurable. Then researchers found that a combination of two medicines, interferon and ribavirin, could boost the cure rate to 45 percent ("cure" meaning the virus is cleared from the body).

The downside is that the regimen is hard to take. Interferon has to be injected, and the whole treatment course takes about a year. The drugs can also have side effects ranging from flu-like symptoms to sleep problems to depression.

Less than a year ago, the U.S. approved two new oral drugs that, when added to the old regimen, send the cure rate to 70 percent. Adding either one of the drugs -- boceprevir (Victrelis) or telaprevir (Incivek) -- can also cut the treatment time to about six months in some people.

The side effects are still there with the triple-drug approach. But with the high possibility of a cure, more people with chronic hepatitis C may want treatment, both Ward and Alter said.

So in a second study, the CDC researchers estimated the cost-effectiveness of doing one-time hepatitis C screening in all Americans born between 1945 and 1965.

They calculated that compared with the "status quo," screening baby boomers would catch an extra 808,580 cases of hepatitis C, at a cost of almost $2,900 for each one.

Ultimately, screening would prevent an extra 82,000 deaths, the CDC estimates -- assuming a certain percentage of people agree to treatment with interferon and ribavirin.

As far as cost-effectiveness, Ward said, that would put baby-boomer screening in line with other widely accepted types of screening, like tests for colon cancer and high blood pressure.

If screened people received one of the new hepatitis C drugs, that would save even more lives -- an additional 121,000 over current screening policy, the CDC says. But the cost would be greater, since both new drugs are very expensive.

Incivek costs nearly $50,000 for the whole course, while Victrelis rings up at roughly $26,000 to $48,000 depending on the duration of treatment.

Still, Alter, who supports baby boomer screening, said the approach looks to be "very cost-effective" -- especially when compared to the costs of treating cirrhosis and liver cancer, which are the most common reasons for liver transplants.

"The beauty of this is, it's six months to one year of treatment," Alter said.

Both Alter and Ward also pointed to other medications now in the drug industry's pipeline that are aimed at taking interferon injections out of the equation.

"Hopefully, we'll soon have oral therapies that are easier to take and have fewer adverse effects," Alter said.

For now, the screening focus in the U.S. is on baby boomers. Whether it could be a good idea in younger generations is not clear.

New hepatitis C infections in the U.S. are down sharply since the 1980s, according to a CDC study published last year.

In the mid-1980s, roughly 70 of every million Americans developed acute hepatitis C each year. Between 1994 and 2006, that rate was 90 percent lower: only seven per million per year.

As it stands, there are roughly 18,000 new hepatitis C infections each year -- most of which occur in injection-drug users.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/xOLGYg and http://bit.ly/xzj1ve Annals of Internal Medicine, February 21, 2012.

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Hepatitis C killing more Americans than HIV

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