• Question: What is main cause of brain infections you have seen?

    Asked by anon-269979 to Bhagteshwar on 16 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Bhagteshwar Singh

      Bhagteshwar Singh answered on 16 Nov 2020:

      Hi! Thanks for the question! Loads of different micro-organisms cause brain infections: viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites… It depends on where you are, how old you are, how well your immune system works, and which part of the brain and its lining (meninges) is affected. In the UK, most brain infections are caused by viruses, such as Enteroviruses, Varicella zoster virus (which causes chickenpox) and Herpes simplex virus. The commonest bacteria are pneumococcus (also called Strep pneumoniae) and meningococcus (also called Neisseria meningitidis). In other places where we work (Brazil, India and Malawi), these bugs also cause quite a lot of brain infection, but other common ones include Mycobacterium tuberculosis (which causes TB), Plasmodium falciparum (malaria), Cryptococcus, dengue and Japanese encephalitis virus.

Comments

  • Photo: Amin

    Amin commented on :

    Hi, as Bhagteshwar nicely mentioned brain infections can be caused by many microorganisms. My personal experience with brain infection comes from my time in Sweden. A colleague of us got a nasty brain infection called tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). In summers, there are many ticks around where there are grass. Some of these ticks may carry a virus and if they bite you they might infect you. So if you travel to Sweden (and some other countries where TBE is prevalent) in summer and go camping make sure you don’t get ticks on you. You can also get a vaccine to protect yourself.