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Does Meningitis Cause Deafness

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Imagine a world where an incurable disease causing the progressive destruction of nerve cells which leads to the wasting of muscles, paralysis, and death runs rampant. A different virus wreaks havoc on the liver of those infected, causing cirrhosis, liver failure and occasionally death. People perish from another disease causing pneumonia (infection of the lungs), bacteremia (infection of the blood), and meningitis (infection of the covering of the brain and spinal cord). Meningitis specifically causes deafness and brain damage and kills 10% of children who contract it. This dystopia represents life without vaccinations for polio, hepatitis B and pneumococcal disease.
On May 14th, 1796, Edward Jenner, an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, took fluid from a cowpox blister and scratched it into the skin of 8 year old James Phipps. A blister rose up on the spot, but it soon dissipated. On July 1st, 1796, Jenner introduced the boy to smallpox matter, but no symptoms or disease ensued. This was the birth of vaccinations. …show more content…

Smallpox causes a multitude of skin blisters and lesions, accompanied by dangerous fevers. Over the centuries, smallpox claimed the lives of millions. It possessed a fatality rate between 20-60% and in infants, the disease killed over 80% of those it infected. Those who survived were left with pock marked faces as a reminder of the agony they endured. Jenner discovered a successful inoculation to smallpox, saving millions of lives and inspiring more scientists to investigate preventative treatment to other critical

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