Officials: Bacterial meningitis kills two Oklahoma students

In the Oologah-Talala public school district in Oklahoma, there were six possible cases of bacterial meningitis, including two deaths. One of the students was only 8 years old. The superintendent of the school district said that the schools were closed on Friday because of this. He feels that they should remain calm but he closed the schools "just to stay on the safe side." The state health board will provide antibiotics against the illness, which is caused by an inflammation of the meninges. All faculty of the school was screened, and it was reported that they have enough antibiotics to treat 1,000 people. Last year in Oklahoma, there were 16 reported cases of bacterial meningitis but only one death. If you have any symptoms of this illness, you should seek medical attention immediately.

I always just assumed that people don't/can't die from seemingly small illnesses like this anymore. I assumed that we were vaccinated against it already and we didn't have to worry about this sort of thing. I guess I was wrong. I think that this particular school district should be even more careful than they are being right now to stop the spread of the disease; if it is serious enough to kill two people in the school district, they should be taking drastic safety measures. Everyone should be vaccinated. I know that if bacterial meningitis was in our state,I would be very worried for our schools' health. This kind of thing shouldn't be able to be killing people nowadays, in my opinion. Schools are very susceptible to diseases like this.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/11/oklahoma.meningitis.death/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+(RSS%3A+Top+Stories)