By Mary Wade Burnside
FAIRMONT — Students at Lincoln High School went home Tuesday with a permission slip for their parents to sign for them to be given antibiotics as a preventative measure against bacterial meningitis after a second student was diagnosed with the potentially life-threatening illness in recent weeks.
Two Marion County Health Department officials spent a good part of the day at the Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department conferring with members of the state Bureau for Public Health on how to deal with the situation.
“They have emphasized that there is no risk to other students in the county other than those as Lincoln,” said Cyndee Kiger, director of nursing at the Marion County Health Department.
A clinic will be held later this week at Lincoln High School for those students whose parents want them to receive the prophylactic antibiotics for bacterial meningitis, Kiger said. She also emphasized that Marion County students can come to the Marion County Health Department’s regularly weekly clinic, held from 1 to 3 p.m. today, to receive the Menactra vaccine against bacterial meningitis.
The school received more than 400 doses of the vaccine when the first student was diagnosed March 11, Kiger said.
However, while Menactra protects against the types A, C, W-135 and Y strains of bacterial meningitis, it does not cover type B, which is the type the first student was diagnosed with.
“It’s important to note that it does protect against the most prevalent strain of meningitis,” Kiger said.
The student who was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis earlier this month has responded to treatment, Kiger said. The current student has been hospitalized at United Hospital Center in Clarksburg.
Meningitis is an infection of the fluid around the spinal cord and the brain, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov). Viral meningitis is generally is less severe than bacterial meningitis, the latter of which can result in brain damage, hearing loss or death.
The Lincoln High School cases are not the only known ones in the area this month. Chelsea Kanatus, a 19-year-old college West Virginia University freshman from Virginia, died of the disease March 2. As is mandatory for incoming WVU freshman, Kanatus had received the meningitis vaccine.
Common bacterial meningitis symptoms, according to a press release from the Marion County Health Department, include high fever, severe headache, difficulty in breathing, stiff neck and back, painful joints and/or sore muscles, discomfort looking into bright lights and vomiting.
To avoid catching the disease, people should practice good hand washing and not share eating utensils, cigarettes, chewing gum or anything that comes into contact with the mouth, or drink after others.
Marion County Health Department officials will be back at the Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department today and times for the antibiotic clinic will be announced when the event has been set, Kiger said.
“We will be providing nursing and supportive assistance as needed,” Kiger said.
E-mail Mary Wade Burnside at mwburnside@timeswv.com.
