The Ministry of Health has asked the autonomous community to immediately inject the monkeypox vaccine, for which Spain will receive another 7,000 so far this week.

Our country has recorded two deaths from monkey pox. The first death confirmed last Friday, of a man living in the Valencian Community, as a result of encephalitis.

The second, another man, in Córdoba, had meningoencephalitis, a mixed picture of meningitis and encephalitis. Whether monkeypox is behind the disease is being studied.

It encephalitis is inflammation of the structures that make up the brain (cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem) and can affect other tissues near the brain such as the meninges.

According to data from Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) every year about 1,200 new cases of encephalitis are diagnosed in Spain.

have index mortality between 5 and 20% cases, and leave sequelae in more than 20% of patients who treat them. These data indicate that this pathology requires greater attention despite the fact that, as specialists point out, it is a undiagnosed disease.

What are the symptoms of encephalitis?

The most common symptoms of encephalitis are:

• Fever.

• Intense headache.

• Disorientation, drowsiness.

• Language disorders.

• changes in behavior.

• Seizure crisis.

This is a very non-specific manifestation of the disease and it is one of the reasons that, according to neurologists, makes diagnosis so difficult.

In addition, because a large number of cases are benign and disappear within a short time, only the most serious cases are diagnosed.

And, as Dr. Martha Guillansecretary of the NES Critical and Intensive Neurology Study Group:

Another difficulty that accompanies this disease is the many elements that can cause encephalitis.

In fact, only in 50% of cases the agent is identified that causes it, and the most common are all viruses. In particular herpes, enterovirus, and arbovirus.

To date, the herpes simplex virus, Epstein-Barr virus, HIV, and the measles, mumps, polio, or rubella virus (in unvaccinated people) are the most common causes of encephalitis in our country, as well as viruses that cause cases with a possible death. highest in the world.

More than 100 viruses have been identified that are capable of infecting the nervous system.

Prevention, key in encephalitis

Early detection is one of the things that most doctors focus on when talking about prevention in this type of disease.

And when the diagnosis of encephalitis is made at the first signs of infection, the percentage of well-developed patients increases significantly.

Among the groups most likely to suffer from encephalitis are children under one year of age, the elderly, as well as those with pathologies related to the immune system.

Regarding prevention and considering that the most common cause of this disease is infection, there are several measures that can be useful to prevent the entry of infectious agents into our body.

• We should avoid eating water and food in bad condition

• Beware of insect bites, you have to protect yourself from them.

• Be careful with animal bites.

• When we travel, we must inform ourselves about the vaccines required at the destination.

• Respect the vaccination schedule for your little one.

• And if we live with pets, we should immunize them too.