The city of Alliance, located in the northern part of the state, is holding the focus of medical researchers and the nation as the events unfold surrounding the recent outbreak of the bacteria, Neisseria meningitidis, which has caused two deaths from meningitis and a possible third person contaminated with the disease.

Friday, June 08, 2001

The city of Alliance, located in the northern part of the state, is holding the focus of medical researchers and the nation as the events unfold surrounding the recent outbreak of the bacteria, Neisseria meningitidis, which has caused two deaths from meningitis and a possible third person contaminated with the disease.

Two high school students, Jonathan Stauffer, 15, and Kelly Coblentz, 16, died last week from a blood infections caused by the bacteria strain. The city of Alliance is awaiting word whether a third student, Christin Van Camp, 18, is infected with the disease.

With the recent pandemic, many people are asking questions about the cause and symptoms of meningitis.

According to information from the Lawrence County Health Department, meningitis is as an infection of the fluid that is in the spinal cord and surrounds the brain.

Meningitis can be caused by either a viral infection or from a few different bacterial sources, such as the strain of meningitis in Alliance. Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Ga., show bacterial meningitis can be "quite severe" – more severe than the viral strains. and may result in brain damage, hearing loss, or learning disability.

King’s Daughters Medical Center infectious diseases physician Dr. Cecilia Gaynor said the bacteria can colonize in the throat and under the right conditions, can spread to the spinal fluid. She said once in the spinal fluid, the disease spreads "quite rapidly."

For people over 2 years old the disease’s symptoms include a high fever, headache and stiff neck. For newborns and small infants, the symptoms include slow or inactive and the baby may be irritable and have vomiting or feed poorly.

Gaynor added that one of the most common symptoms of the disease is a rash. She said the rash is the trigger that send most people to the hospital.

Meningitis can be treated with antibiotics, as with the case in Alliance. At that city, health officials are dispensing antibiotics on a large scale to the residents. Thousands of people in Alliance stood in line outside hospitals to get antibiotics, and about 37,000 doses were given out. The antibiotics are used for short-term treatment, though. The antibiotic only protects people for one to two days.

Gaynor said the antibiotics is often effective in the treatment of the N. meningitidis strain of bacteria, killing the bacteria in normally one dose.

A vaccination is also available for certain strains of the disease. The vaccine is effective for three to five years.

An inoculation program will begin in Alliance on Friday with the state picking up the tab for the shots, which cost $55 each. This vaccination program is on the decision of the Ohio Department of Health which decided on Tuesday to initiate the state’s first large-scale immunization program.

Students that attend West Branch, Alliance, Marlington, Sebring, Salem and St. Thomas Aquinas high schools will receive the inoculations. Immediate family members of VanCamp and the students who died also will receive vaccinations.