Daddy don’t smoke

Fathers who can’t seem to quit smoking will have to choose between their daily nicotine fix and the pleasure of kissing and cuddling their children. Recent studies have found a link between passive smoking and the deadly meningococcal disease — commonly called ‘brain fever’.

Australian researchers have proved that children exposed to passive smoke and smokers are four times more likely to contract meningococcal disease, a disaster in a country where the incidence of the disease is higher than two cases per 1,00,000 population.

The bacterium responsible, Neisseria meningiditis, lurks in the throats of most smokers, the studies say, and is transmitted into the respiratory tract of children, when they are carried or kissed by cigarette-happy elders.

“Meningitis is infection of the lining between the brain and the skull, and the fluid that surrounds it. While the disease can be treated if identified early, a delay in dosing the child with antibiotics will lead to complications like sepsis of the blood and convulsions, and often, death,” says Dr Meer Mustafa Hussain, senior pediatrician and former vice chancellor of the Dr MGR Medical University.

While most city doctors are unaware of the newly revealed link between passive smoking and ‘brain fever’, they admit that cigarette smoke drastically lowers immunity in children.

The paper, published in international medical journals, says tobacco smoke cripples the filtering mechanism in the throat and nasal passages. While adults with stronger immune systems manage to carry around the infection without being infected, babies below the age of two are most vulnerable.

Meningitis is diagnosed by testing fluid drawn from the child’s spine, but typical symptoms are sudden fever, headache, drowsiness, sore joints, nausea and vomiting, and a rash of red spots, says Dr Hussain. A dislike of bright lights and loud noises is also seen.

Dr J.K. Reddy, consultant paediatrician at Apollo Children’s Hospital, says, “We know for a fact that passive smoking weakens the respiratory system in children. They become prone to diseases like asthma, bronchitis, tuberculosis and even pneumonia.”

Even as the public health systems in the UK and Australia, where meningitis kills one in every six infected children, have begun campaigns against passive smoking to prevent meningitis, kicking the habit is the only way, say experts.

“By not smoking in the presence of children, you may be saving them from all the other effects of passive smoke. However, the smoker still harbours the virulent bug, and can pass it on to children through hugs and kisses,” warns Prof. Robert Booye of the National Center for Immunization and Research in Sydney in his paper.