'Natural' meningitis drug cuts deaths

Rapid treatment is essential for meningococcus sepsis

A drug based on a natural protein has been shown to ease symptoms and reduce deaths from a form of poisoning caused by the meningitis bacteria.

The poisoning meningococcus sepsis occurs in about a third of patients who catch bacterial meningitis.

It spreads rapidly, usually before the emergence of typical meningitis symptoms such as fever, chills and vomiting.

This drug is certainly very promising

Linda Glennie, Meningitis Research Foundation

About 10% of suffers die, while others may require multiple limb amputation.

The protein, manufactured in the white blood cells, acts as a natural antibiotic, neutralising poisons produced by bacteria that can cause damage to blood cells, tissues and organs.

Dr Brett Giroir, of the Children's Medical Center of Dallas, said the drug had been shown to reduce the severe complications associated with meningococcus sepsis.

He added: "The study strongly suggests that the drug has an improvement in mortality."

Dr Giroir and his colleagues studied the effects of rBPI21 on 190 children with severe cases of the disease and compared the results with those of 203 children who were given a placebo.

They found nearly 10% of the children in the placebo group died from the disease, compared to 7.4% who were given the drug.

Children in the drug group also had fewer limb amputations.

Rapid treatment

Most of the children in the study were not given the drug until about six hours after they were diagnosed because they had to be transferred to a trial centre.

The researchers said better results would have been achieved if the drug had been given to the children at an earlier stage.

Linda Glennie, medical information officer for the Meningitis Research Foundation, said the drugs had not proved conclusive because not enough patients had taken part.

But she added: "This drug is certainly very promising. We are really hopeful that we can go forward to another trial to show once and for all that it is effective in reducing deaths and amputations."

The research is published in The Lancet medical journal.

Meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia are caused by different strains of the meningitis bacteria.

A vaccine for the C strain of the disease has reduced by 85% the number of cases of disease among target groups since it was introduced in the UK last year.

More than 15 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the UK to babies and teenagers - the highest risk groups - during the past 10 months.

But the B strain of the disease, for which there is no current vaccine, is responsible for approximately 60% of cases of meningococcal disease in the UK.