WITH reference to your front page Headline on December 21: Brain virus kills girl, 3, I congratulate you on the excellent advice given to spot this tragic disease. But please refrain from referring to meningococcal meningitis as a "Virus".

It is not. It is a particularly virulent bacteria. It does not attack the brain but the covering of the brain, the meninges.

Children are often examined by members of the medical profession and would term many illnesses as a Virus because the illness they have is a "Virus", such viral illnesses are the common cold, flu, croup, bronchiolitis.

Today, after your misleading headline, a child was brought to see me as an urgency, and after I examined him, I diagnosed a "Viral infection", to which the parent was horrified and asked if it is the killer virus like in tonight's paper?

At that time I had not seen the paper, but had to explain to the patient the different types of viruses and that they are rarely killers. The child did not have meningitis.

Even meningitis can be caused by a virus but it is rarely fatal.

I hope you could inform the public of the above facts.

Dr. R. G. Mitchell (via e-mail)

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