How Does Viral Meningitis Start?
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Viral Meningitis
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Meningitis occurs when there is an infection of the meninges, the thin lining that covers the brain and the spinal cord. There are two types of meningitis, bacterial and viral. As the name might imply, viral meningitis is caused by a virus which infects the body. The symptoms of viral meningitis are headache, fever and a stiff neck, though these are sometimes accompanied by a sore throat and intestinal symptoms as well. Viral meningitis should be thought of as the spread of an infection, not as the main disease, since it's often caused by something else.
Infection
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The first step in a person getting viral meningitis is for them to catch another virus that can cause the infection of the meninges. There's a huge variety of viruses that can cause this condition, and many of them are extremely common enteroviruses which infect the intestines. In children, viral meningitis is also caused by the mumps, variations of the herpes virus and even some mosquito born viruses. It is possible though that viral meningitis is contracted directly, and that it wasn't begun by another virus. In all cases though, a lumbar puncture must be done to collect spinal fluid to see whether or not there is a viral infection.
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Origin
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While bacterial meningitis (which is much deadlier than viral meningitis) has been recorded back for several hundred years, there isn't a clear record as to when viral meningitis began. The official discovery of the condition appears to have been in the 1920's during an autopsy of a patient that was supposed to have died of influenza (not an uncommon occurrence at the time). The doctor found an odd swelling of the meninges which was not in keeping with the symptoms of death by influenza. After the discovery of the disease though, it wasn't until the 1970s that a vaccination was created to protect people against catching viral meningitis.
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