02-23-2022, 05:04 AM
pdq wrote:
[quote=gabester]
— how can this possibly be true?!
I don’t think it is (quite) true. The kid had classic meningococcemia - a widespread bacterial infection by neisseria meningiditis. This kind of “sepsis” causes the body’s immune system to freak out and all kinds of bad things to happen, and quickly - like, in 24 hours, like this case (in which case it gets the fancy name “purpura fulminans”, a shorthand description of the whole nasty assortment of things that happen)
It’s a little like being hit by a (microbiological) bolt of lightning. But it probably had nothing to do with the noodles. In fact, his roommate ate the same noodles and was fine. Actually, about 20% of people have this same bacterium colonizing their throat. Why don’t they get sick? I’m not sure anyone knows.
It’s a real tragedy, but fortunately rare. That’s (partly) why they give kids meningococcal vaccines these days. This kid had had only one dose.
I took a look at the original article, published on March 11, 2021.
Three excerpts stood out to me, though they may simply muddy the water:
1) The patient had been well until 20 hours before this admission, when diffuse abdominal pain and nausea developed after he ate rice, chicken, and lo mein leftovers from a restaurant meal. Multiple episodes of emesis occurred, with vomitus that was either bilious or red-brown. The abdominal pain and vomiting were followed by the development of chills, generalized weakness, progressively worsening diffuse myalgias, chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, neck stiffness, and blurry vision.
2) On the patient’s admission to this hospital, additional history was obtained from family members. A friend who had eaten the same meal as the patient the evening before admission had vomited once shortly thereafter but had not become progressively ill.
3) Of note, during his hospitalization, we learned that he had received only one dose of the meningococcal conjugate vaccine, without a booster, and one dose of the serogroup B meningococcal vaccine.
It seems more likely to me that he caught the infection directly from the friend, or from someone else, and not from the noodles. A disease like this progresses rapidly, but it still takes time for the bacterium to reach levels in the blood high enough to cause symptoms.
And the "YouTube doctor Dr Bernard" quoted in the yahoo article is not someone I would rely on. I don't think he read the NEJM article.