About 80 percent of people who have a meningococcal infection have meningitis and the rest have septicemia. Of the 80 percent who have meningococcal meningitis, around 55 percent have both meningitis and septicemia, leaving only 25 percent suffering from meningitis alone. Signs and Symptoms Patients suffering from septicemia will develop a rash, called a hemorrhagic rash . This starts as a cluster of tiny blood spots, which look like pin pricks in the skin. If untreated, these gradually get bigger and become multiple areas of obvious bleeding under the skin surface, like fresh bruises.
Septicemia can develop very quickly.
In severe cases the rash may spread almost before your eyes. The patient rapidly becomes unwell, loses interest in food and surroundings, becoming feverish and cold with cool hands and feet, followed by coma and sometimes death. Patients who get sick more slowly may also develop some of the signs of meningitis. In some cases, the bacteria multiply uncontrollably in the bloodstream and this results in septicemia before the bacteria can infect the meninges. In other cases, infection in the bloodstream and in the meninges develops at the same time, and these patients get both septicemia and meningitis.