With the advent and implementation of vaccinations for organisms such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenza type B, and Neisseria meningitis, rates of bacterial meningitis have been in decline, making viral meningitis more common. Countries without high rates of immunization still carry higher rates of bacterial disease. While the disease can occur in both children and adults, it is more common in children. Rates of infection tend to reach a peak in the summer and fall. During an outbreak in Romania and in Spain viral meningitis was more common among adults. While, people aged younger than 15 made up 33.8% of cases. In contrast in Finland in 1966 and in Cyprus in 1996, Gaza 1997, China 1998 and Taiwan 1998, the incidence of viral meningitis was higher among children. Recent research
It has been proposed that viral meningitis might lead to inflammatory injury of the vertebral artery wall.The Meningitis Research Foundation is conducting a study to see if new genomic techniques can improve the speed, accuracy and cost of diagnosing meningitis in children in the UK. The research team will develop a new method to be used for the diagnosis of meningitis, analysing the genetic material of microorganisms found in CSF (cerebrospinal fluid). The new method will first be developed using CSF samples where the microorganism is known, but then will be applied to CSF samples where the microorganism is unknown (estimated at around 40%) to try and identify a cause.
Neonatal diabetes mellitus (NDM) is a disease that affects an infant and their bodys ability to produce or use insulin. NDM is a monogenic (controlled by a single gene) form of diabetes that occurs in the first 6 months of life. Infants do not produce enough insulin, leading to an increase in  glucose accumulation. It is a rare disease, occurring in only one in 100,000 to 500,000  live births. NDM can be mistaken for the much more common type 1 diabetes, but type 1 diabetes usually occurs later than the first 6 months of life. There are two types of NDM:  permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus (PNDM) is a lifelong condition. Transient neonatal diabetes mellitus (TNDM) is diabetes that disappears during the infant stage but may reappear later in life.Specific genes that can cause NDM have been identified. The onset of NDM can be caused by abnormal pancreatic development, beta cell dysfunction or accelerated beta cell dysfunction. Individuals with monogenic diabetes can pass it on to their children or future generations. Each gene associated with NDM has a different inheritance pattern. Symptoms and signs
The first sign of neonatal diabetes is often slowed fetal growth, followed by unusually low birthweight. At some point within the first six months of life, infants with neonatal diabetes tend to experience the classic symptoms of type 1 diabetes: thirst, frequent urination, and signs of dehydration. The timing of symptom onset varies with the type of neonatal diabetes.