Preventing meningitis caused by parasites

[Mitzi M]

Shekelpal,

Thanks for bringing this up. Sorry about your friend. I was just talking with a friend of mine the other day about the lack of public information about real health risks here Hawai'i. I think its truly shameful that the State Health Dept. has not done more to make this information available to people here. I'm glad you talked to the heath dept. and tried to get Lingle on board.

A friend of mine just spent a few days in the hospital and almost lost his thumb to a staph infection. It came on pretty fast but luckily he knew that it was staph so he got help in time.

I think its critical to let people know what to look out for and how to prevent some of the unique health problems we have here such as meningitis, lepto and staph. There really needs to be a public information campaign about these serious health issues. Why couldn't there at least be a few pages in the front of the phone book about them?

I guess it doesn't paint a very pretty picture for tourists - but they too are at risk and deserve to know what they may be exposed to while visiting.

In some parts of the western mainland its possible to contract bubonic plague from exposure to fleas (usually from carcasses of wild animals or around prairie dog colonies). In many places this information is given out to hunters when they get a permit and is actually included in visitor info and emergency information in the phone books. Plague is easily curable with the right antibiotics, but the trick is to know you have it. The worst cases are tourists who were infected by plague and then got sick when they returned home, never knowing what hit them. Because of this, the health departments in plague areas started an information campaign.

I don't know what its going to take for that to happen in Hawai'i, but in the mean time thanks for sharing this information about how to stay healthy.

Aloha,
Mitzi