{"id":27911,"date":"2016-08-11T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=27911"},"modified":"2016-08-08T11:07:36","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T16:07:36","slug":"campaign-to-help-prevent-meningitis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=27911","title":{"rendered":"Campaign to help prevent meningitis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2000px-Symptoms_of_Meningitis.svg\"<\/a>UWIRE<\/p>\n

GSK today launched an educational campaign to help raise awareness of meningitis, a rare but potentially deadly disease. Most teens and young adults have not received the vaccines needed to help protect against all five vaccine-preventable groups of meningitis. \u00a0The campaign, Take 5 for Meningitis<\/em>, will use news media, social media and educational events to help educate parents and young adults about meningitis and urge them to talk to their healthcare provider about vaccination to help prevent it.<\/p>\n

There are five vaccine-preventable groups of meningitis\u2014A, B, C, W, and Y\u2014and two types of vaccines to help protect against these groups. While most young people (70 percent) have received the vaccine that helps protect against meningitis groups A, C, W and Y, less than 10 percent have received the vaccine to that helps prevent against meningitis B. Meningitis B causes approximately 30 percent of the cases of meningococcal disease in the U.S.and meningitis B vaccination is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for young people ages 16-23 years. The Take 5 campaign is intended to help increase immunization rates against meningitis B.<\/p>\n

Jamie Schanbaum, a U.S. Paralympic cyclist and meningitis survivor, helped launch the campaign along with world-renowned photographer Anne Geddes and Dr. Len Friedland, Vice President, Director Scientific Affairs and Public Health, Vaccines North America for GSK, at BlogHer 2016 in Los Angeles, an annual conference of more than 3,500 bloggers and media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in my first semester at my dream college when I learned one of the hardest lessons of my life. What I first thought was the flu turned out to be meningitis and I ended up losing all of my fingers and both legs below the knees.\u201d said Schanbaum. \u201cWhen it comes to meningitis, what you don\u2019t know can hurt you. That\u2019s why I have joined with GSK in this effort to educate others about meningitis. I urge everyone to take five minutes to learn the facts and what they can do to help prevent it.\u201d<\/p>\n

One in 10 people infected with meningitis B will die, while one in five survivors will suffer long-term disability, such as loss of limbs, brain damage, deafness and nervous system problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile vaccines are the best way to help prevent this rare but potentially devastating disease, knowledge is power in this case,\u201d said Dr. Friedland. \u201cResearch shows that 88 percent of parents whose children have received a meningitis vaccine don\u2019t know which serogroups of the disease their child is vaccinated against.We are working to build awareness and help prevent this terrible disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young people particularly are at risk because they live, work and play in places that put them in close contact with each other, such as schools, sports teams, clubs, camps, college dorms and military housing. Vaccines are the best protection against meningitis as it is often difficult to treat and can be fatal, sometimes within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms, or can cause life-long disability.<\/p>\n

Through the campaign, Schanbuam and Nick Springer, a U.S. Paralympian wheel chair rugby player and another meningitis survivor, will tell their own stories of survival to help educate on the importance of vaccination.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeningitis changed my entire life when I was just a kid. I lost most of my legs and arms and later learned that there was a vaccine that might have protected me against the disease,\u201d said Springer. \u201cNo one should have to go through what I\u2019ve gone through and that\u2019s why I\u2019m working with GSK to tell my story.\u201d<\/p>\n

GSK has launched a website where parents and young people can learn about meningococcal meningitis, the risk factors, how it can be spread, the symptoms, the impact of the disease, and how teens and young adults can help protect themselves. Visit www.meningitis.com for more information and additional resources.<\/p>\n

Take 5 for Meningitis<\/em> complements GSK\u2019s larger effort\u2014Win for Meningitis<\/em>\u2014a global campaign to build awareness about meningitis and the vaccines available to help prevent it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UWIRE GSK today launched an educational campaign to help raise awareness of meningitis, a rare but potentially deadly disease. Most teens and young adults have… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3398,11],"tags":[106,10305,9041,103],"class_list":["post-27911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-meningitis","tag-meningococcal-disease","tag-tiger-media-network"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27929,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27911\/revisions\/27929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}