<p>Does anyone here know how to acquire these two diseases (or how it’s spread, especially on college campuses)?</p>
<p>i think meningitis is viral.</p>
<p>Meningitis is viral, bacterial, and fungal. It is highly contagious in its bacterial form, and can be spread by bodily fluids that can be spread to others through sneezes, coughing, etc. The viral form is similar, but the difference is, it is less serious. The only reason why I know this though is because a kid at my school had it and they had to close the school to get it decontaminated. I hope this helps.</p>
<p>did you get the vaccine, atawallpa?</p>
<p>No, not yet, but I’m getting it next time I visit the doctor. It’s the next vaccine on the list. It goes by age, and I will be “old enough” to recieve the vaccine. </p>
<p>That being said, it wasn’t a big deal what happened at my school. It hadn’t even come to the “school”, but they needed to make sure the student didn’t come in contact with anyone else. I believe the student, having VIRAL meningitis instead of bacterial, was not as seriously ill as he could’ve been if he had bacterial.</p>
<p>my brother had meningitis as a 4-yr-old…we both had bad colds/viruses, and while mine went away after a few days, his kept getting worse and after a week or so developed into viral meningitis. Viral meningitis has a much lower fatality rate than bacterial meningitis; my brother–thank goodness–was absolutely fine after about a week in the hospital.</p>