Septicemia

What is septicemia?
Septicemia is the clinical name for blood poisoning. Fatality rates for septicemia are high -- around 20 percent. Septicemia is a medical emergency and needs urgent treatment.

Septicemia, as it relates to meningitis:
Some bacteria that cause meningitis can also cause septicemia, particularly the meningococcal form.

• About 80 percent of people who have a meningococcal infection have meningitis. The rest have septicemia, a serious infection of the bloodstream.

• Of the 80 percent who have meningococcal meningitis, around 55 percent have both meningitis and septicemia, leaving only 25 per cent suffering from meningitis alone.

When meningococcus invades the body, it enters from the throat, gets into the bloodstream, and travels through the blood to the meninges.

• In some cases, the bacteria multiply uncontrollably in the bloodstream, which results in septicemia before the bacteria can infect the meninges.

• In other cases, infection in the bloodstream and in the meninges develops at the same time, and these patients get both septicemia and meningitis.

• In a minority of cases, the body can stop the bacteria multiplying in the bloodstream, but not in the meninges, and these patients develop meningitis.

What are signs and symptoms of septicemia?
Patients with septicemia often develop a hemorrhagic rash -- a cluster of tiny blood spots that look like pin pricks in the skin. If untreated, these gradually get bigger and begin to look like fresh bruises. These bruises then join together to form larger areas of purple skin damage and discoloration.

Septicemia develops very quickly. The patient rapidly becomes very ill, and may:

• lose interest in food and surroundings
• become feverish
• feel cold, with cool hands and feet
• experience a coma and sometimes death

Those who become ill more slowly may also develop some of the signs of meningitis.

How may septicemia be treated?
Septicemia is a medical emergency that requires immediate attention from a physician or other healthcare professional. In most cases, treatment will be with antibiotics.