University of Massachusetts vaccinated students after two cases of Meningitis B surfaced

Karly Fitzgerald, a 22-year-old nursing student from University of Massachusetts, has now become an expert at providing vaccines. She gave about 60 vaccines against meningitis B to the students of the school. She was called in for the duty to administer injections to the students at the school decided to vaccinate its nearly 30,000 students.

The major cause of meningitis B is a bacterial infection and it is a fatal disease. Though there is a vaccine, which protects against meningitis B, it is not provided on regular schedules, because the disease is rare.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the vaccine must be given to the people, who are at a higher risk, including college students when there is an outbreak in the campus.

Reports suggested that two students at UMass were diagnosed with meningitis B. Though both recovered with the treatment, their genetic tests showed that they had the same strain of infection.

Since the students did not have any close contact with each other and contracted the infection from different sources, the university took the matter with utmost seriousness.

University administration said that with this diagnosis, it can be concluded that many other students are also at an increased risk of some meningococcal diseases on the campus. Thus, it is recommended that all the undergraduate students must be vaccinated.

Meningitis is caused by meningococcal bacteria that cause an infection around the spinal cord of an individual. This can even lead to death of the person.

University reported that since the disease has such serious impact, they decided to vaccinate others, who were in close contacts with the two infected students. With this, all close contacts with the two students could be prevented from getting infected.

 

Source: nbcnews.com