Meningitis is a serious, sometimes life-threatening infection that can strike without warning and progress rapidly. Rebecca Pellett Madan, MD, associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at NYU Langone Health and pediatric infectious disease specialist at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone, explains how to identify a case of meningitis, when to seek treatment, and how to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

Dr. Pellett Madan encourages parents to vaccinate their children against the disease. “It can be very hard for a parent to know when a child is at the threshold of having a cold or something more serious, and that’s why we want to prevent getting to that point in the first place,” Dr. Pelett Madan tells Health.

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