There is another confirmed case of meningococcal disease in Corvallis. This time it’s a middle school student. Health officials say the bacterial infection is rare to occur in young kids. KLCC’s Tiffany Eckert reports.
The young student who attends Linus Pauling Middle School was admitted to hospital on Sunday with very specific, life threatening symptoms.
“It was due to really alert family members who noticed.”
That’s Charlie Fautin, Deputy Director of the Benton County Health Department.
“It’s difficult during flu season when a lot of people are sick but the onset of some of these meningococcal symptoms like a stiff neck, high fever, a rash—and got this child into medical care immediately and that is the key thing that can avert disaster.”
Middle school classmates or others who spent 4 hours or more with the infected student are being vaccinated. Fautin says so far they have found no clear link between this case and the six undergraduate students at OSU who contracted the disease.