OSU student diagnosed with meningitis

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Oklahoma State University Health Sciences confirmed Tuesday that an OSU female student has been diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. 

OSU is working with the Oklahoma State Department of Health and Payne County Health Department to identify all persons at risk and is providing a post-exposure oral antibiotic. Several of the student’s close friends have already been contacted and treated. 

“The general public is not at risk,” said Steve Rogers, director of the University Health Sciences. “Only persons who have had close, personal contact to a person with a meningococcal infection have a slightly increased risk of developing the disease.”

Rogers said such personal contact would be household contact, such as sharing eating or drinking utensils or being physically intimate with a person with meningococcal infection.

OSU continues to contact any individuals who might have had a recent close contact with the student, who lives in a campus apartment. In addition, the university has contacted the student’s instructors and is contacting her classmates.

While casual contacts, such as students in a school classroom or co-workers at a workplace, are not at increased risk of getting the disease, OSU will be providing oral antibiotics to students in each of the affected student’s classes. Students in her classes may take the antibiotic in class today or tomorrow or go to University Health Services. Here is the student’s list of classes:

 

CHEM-1515-003 General Chemistry MWF – 8:30 a.m. ES 317

PSYC-1113-013 Introductory Psych MWF – 2:30 p.m. CLB 122

SPAN-2215-002 Intermed Spanish MTWRF – 1:30 p.m. GU 209

ZOOL-1604-012 Animal Biology MWF – 12:30 p.m. ES 317

 

Meningitis is a potentially fatal infection of the fluids of the brain and spinal cord and is caused by the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis. The symptoms may appear two to ten days after infection but usually within three to four days. People who are ill with meningitis will have a fever, intense headache, nausea, vomiting, and a stiff neck. It is important to seek care from a physician as soon as possible if these symptoms appear.

Many healthy people carry meningococcal bacteria in their noses and throats without any symptoms. Usually, the bacteria stay in the nose and throat for a few days and then disappear. The bacteria are spread from person to person by direct contact with secretions from the nose and throat. The reason the organism disappears in some people and produces illness in others is not clearly understood but is probably related to individual susceptibility.

Ciprofloxacin or rifampin are the antibiotics generally prescribed for those with close contact. They eliminate the bacteria from the nose and throat of persons carrying them, which may help protect contacts from developing a meningococcal infection.