An official with the state Department of Health confirmed
Tuesday there are no cases of meningitis in the area, specifically
in the Bradford Area School District.
“At this point, we don’t have anything,” Richard McGarvey of the
Department of Health said late Tuesday afternoon. “At this point,
we don’t have any cases.”
The possibility of a case of meningitis came to light Tuesday
when someone contacted The Era after hearing a call to WESB radio’s
Live Line program that morning about a sick child at George G.
Blaisdell Elementary School. That was the first time Bradford
School District Superintendent Sandra Romanowski heard about a
possible case.
She, however, said it was checked out and no cases have been
confirmed.
“They don’t have a confirmed case at this point,” she said. “We
will go from there.”
Romanowski explained that if a case was diagnosed at a hospital,
the hospital has to, by law, report it to the Department of Health.
She said she spoke with both the Department of Health and Bradford
Regional Medical Center and both agencies said there have been no
confirmed case of meningitis.
“We have heard that a child was tested,” Romanowski said, but
the test results have not come back.
Romanowski said even if a case is confirmed, it does not
necessarily mean people are in danger.
McGarvey said there are several types of meningitis – bacterial,
viral and chemical. Bacterial meningitis is the most dangerous, he
said.
“The Department of Health would recommend people closest to the
(patient) would be treated with a series of antibiotics as a
preventative measure,” she said. “They don’t consider it an all-out
epidemic.”
Romanowski said school officials have educated themselves on
what exactly meningitis is and what kind of a threat it would pose
to the school community.
“It made me feel a whole lot better,” she said. “It is not as
easy to transmit as I thought.”
McGarvey said meningitis is transmitted from person to person
through saliva. This could include eating or drinking from
something an infected person has or by kissing the individual.
Bacterial meningitis can be life-threatening, McGarvey said,
whereas viral and chemical meningitis are less severe.
Chemical meningitis comes from chemical spills that get into a
person’s system, he said.
McGarvey said that when a case is reported, officials are
concerned with “not so much what it is, but what caused it.”
“That’s where the hospitals and doctors come into play,” he
said, adding he had received calls from other reporters and parents
asking about a possible case in this area.
Romanowski said the district received “quite a few calls” about
the situation and some of the parents had taken their children out
of school.
“Until I learned more about it, I didn’t understand it as well
as I do now,” she said.
Kim Maben, communications director for BRMC, referred all calls
to the Department of Health. She reiterated the hospital would
report any findings of meningitis to the Department of Health.
McGarvey said most people carry around bacterial meningitis with
them, but never get sick.
Symptoms include a spike in temperature, swollen glands, a
prominent headache and a stiff neck.
“Sometimes people get a rash,” he said. “They get a rash from
the fever.”
If the disease progresses, a person could slip into a coma. One
in 10 people who get it will die, he said.
