Respecting the illness is merited. It can be a serious and even deadly infection. Panic over meningitis is not warranted. Most infected people respond to antibiotic treatment. The patient pulls through the infection without suffering any brain damage if the illness is diagnosed and treated quickly.
Body temperature rises.
The neck becomes stiff. Once the diagnosis has been made, the next step is identification of the bacterium causing it. Without that knowledge, treatment is not on solid ground. Identification does not take very long. Meningococcus is a bacterium often implicated in meningitis infection.