Georgetown U Freshman diagnosed with Meningitis

[Anonymous]

The news was received over a campus-wide email. Apparently it's required for all incoming freshman/transfer students but they have the right to waive it.

[Anonymous]

Waive what? Meningitis?

[Anonymous]

I think the emAil? As someone who had a lockdown during my senior year of college I'm a big fan of the mass emails and texts.

I'm sure the mass emAil included signs and symptoms to watch out for? And what to do if you start to exhibit these symptoms?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Waive what? Meningitis?

There's a vaccine for it. There was an outbreak at another college campus last year. Like more than a dozen kids or something, as I recall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Waive what? Meningitis?

Yes.

And sorry, it's a GU underclassman. The email did not specify the student's grade.

[Anonymous]

OP, I hope your classmates can construct a coherent paragraph. Otherwise, I'm not impressed with Georgetown.

[Anonymous]

DD was required to have the vaccine before she went to college. I'm surprised any student anywhere could get around that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the emAil? As someone who had a lockdown during my senior year of college I'm a big fan of the mass emails and texts.

I'm sure the mass emAil included signs and symptoms to watch out for? And what to do if you start to exhibit these symptoms?

Yes, it did along with phone numbers to call and a link to CDC information. There were also suggestions for personal hygiene and where to go for information about vaccines. ~from a GU mom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD was required to have the vaccine before she went to college. I'm surprised any student anywhere could get around that.

Says right here students can waive it: http://studenthealth.georgetown.edu/medical-care/forms

[Anonymous]

Another email was just sent announcing that a student who passed away today at the GU hospital from meningitis. The email named the student. It sounds like it was the same person that the earlier message was about.

[Anonymous]

Yikes, how scary and sad!

[Anonymous]

The meningitis vaccine approved by the FDA in the US and given to all kids as part of routine vaccination schedules (unless kid has a vaccine-adverse parent who refuses to vaccinate due to lingering confusion over vaccines and autism, despite clear fraud from the author of the one positive study) is for meningococcal meningitis type A, which previously has accounted for the vast majority of meningococcal disease in the US. Meningococcal meningitis is devastating and can kill or permanently disable very rapidly, but the vaccine is very effective.

The problem is that two recent outbreaks at Princeton and UC Santa Barbara were a different type, type B, which is much more common in Europe and not the US. There is an approved vaccine used for B in Europe but the drug company never bothered to get approval here since so uncommon in the US. Once the two recent college outbreaks were shown to be type B, the European vaccine was brought in under special permission from the FDA and given to all Princeton and UC Santa Barbara students and their close contacts, and if these outbreaks continue, suspect the vaccine will be approved for use in the US more widely. Don't know yet if the Georgetown case is A or B. The student was not from the US and may not have been vaccinated against A. No students died at Princeton, but a contact of a Princeton student from Drexel did die last spring and she did have the same bug found previously at Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The meningitis vaccine approved by the FDA in the US and given to all kids as part of routine vaccination schedules (unless kid has a vaccine-adverse parent who refuses to vaccinate due to lingering confusion over vaccines and autism, despite clear fraud from the author of the one positive study) is for meningococcal meningitis type A, which previously has accounted for the vast majority of meningococcal disease in the US. Meningococcal meningitis is devastating and can kill or permanently disable very rapidly, but the vaccine is very effective.

The problem is that two recent outbreaks at Princeton and UC Santa Barbara were a different type, type B, which is much more common in Europe and not the US. There is an approved vaccine used for B in Europe but the drug company never bothered to get approval here since so uncommon in the US. Once the two recent college outbreaks were shown to be type B, the European vaccine was brought in under special permission from the FDA and given to all Princeton and UC Santa Barbara students and their close contacts, and if these outbreaks continue, suspect the vaccine will be approved for use in the US more widely. Don't know yet if the Georgetown case is A or B. The student was not from the US and may not have been vaccinated against A. No students died at Princeton, but a contact of a Princeton student from Drexel did die last spring and she did have the same bug found previously at Princeton.

Yes, my understanding is that the tests are not yet complete. But the test they referred to was to determine whether it was bacterial or viral. I don't know if that is related to A vs B? Do you know, pp?

[Anonymous]

This was clearly bacterial, viral meningitis is much milder and doesn't kill anyone quickly like this. The vaccine (A or B) is against meningococcal meningitis, which is a bacterial meningitis and is the classic very very serious one that kids living in groups get (army recruits, college students classically). Older patients can get pneumococcal meningitis, and Hemophilus can also cause meningitis rarely (but covered by the HIB vaccine). So am almost certain this will be meningococcal, and the treatment of the other students who had contact with her with antibiotics means that they assumed this was meningococcal as well. The A vs B issue is two major substrains of meningococcus, and that is what I was referring to that they likely don't know yet but should very soon. That will determine how much risk anyone else is at, if A, likely not much, most college students vaccinated already and if not, easy to get them vaccinated since A vaccine is available. If B, then the issue of whether this is going to be another outbreak that will require again getting the FDA to allow vaccination of the college community with the B vaccine from Europe

[Anonymous]

An email sent on Thursday confirmed that it was bacterial meningitis B. GU maintains it's not very contagious. Hopefully they're right.