An eight-year-old boy from
Livorno is in serious condition at Florence's Meyer pediatric
hospital after contracting meningitis C.
The boy was reportedly vaccinated in 2009 against meningitis
C, which is highly contagious.
Public health authorities in Livorno are giving preventive
treatment to the students and teachers who were in contact with
the boy.
The new case follows the death this week of two women in
Tuscany from meningitis.
A 65-year-old retired teacher from Viareggio on Tuesday died
at a hospital in Livorno almost a month after being admitted for
a form of pneumococcal meningitis, which is not contagious.
The previous day, a 45-year-old Romanian national who lived
in Florence died of sepsis from meningitis C in the Tuscan
city's Santa Maria Novella Hospital.
Tuscany has registered a rising number of meningitis cases
over the past two years, in particular of the ST11-strain of
meningitis C.
A total of 31 meningitis cases were reported last year and
26 in 2016.
Seven cases this year have been fatal - including six people
who died from meningitis C - and another seven died last year,
six from the C-strain and another from the B-strain.
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