A study, commissioned by the Meningitis Research Foundation, revealed that meningitis and septicaemia have a significant impact on children’s school performance, affecting their ability to learn and their behaviour worse than that of children being treated for other critical illnesses.
About 3,400 people a year contract meningitis and septicaemia, many of them children. One in four will be left with side effects such as loss of limbs, hearing impairment or brain damage.
The study, from Imperial College London, and conducted at St Mary’s and Great Ormond Street hospitals, looked at children aged five to 16 years who had been in paediatric intensive care. A series of tests were carried out five months after they had left hospital, measuring intellectual function, memory, and attention. The children’s teachers also reported on their performance at school. Children who had not been in intensive care were tested as a comparison.
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