Infection strikes again

Sproul Hall resident 'doing extremely well'

A male University student, hospitalized last week with a meningococcal infection, has been transferred from Centre Community Hospital to his hometown hospital.

The student, who is critically ill, does not have meningitis; the lining of his spinal cord has not been attacked by the bacteria of the infection, which would classify the illness as meningitis, she said.

The name of the student will not be released by University Health Services. He is a resident of first floor Sproul Hall.

Although the student's floormates were aware of the illness, some of them said they were not afraid of contracting the disease. One can be infected by sharing a drink, among other ways.

"From what they told us, we have almost no chance of getting it," said Mike Zajac (freshman-engineering), a resident of the Sproul Hall floor.

Doug Timbie (freshman-engineering), Zajac's roommate, said the student was worn down because he was really busy. The student was rushing a fraternity, Timbie said, and he was also trying to keep up with work.

"He was sick last semester, too," Timbie said, adding that the previous sickness was nothing like this infection.

No other cases related to the recently infected student have been identified at the University, Spear said, and University Health Services has been in contact with the "very few" roommates, close friends and others identified to be at risk. About 30 to 40 students have been given preventative antibiotics to decrease the chance of infection, Spear said.

"We tried to treat more people than absolutely necessary," she said. "We also were certain that information was distributed to kind of a broad group of students just to let them know what's going on."

Symptoms of the disease include a fever greater than 103 degrees, rash, severe weakness, dizziness, headache, stiff neck and altered consciousness or confusion.

Students having those symptoms, or other concerns, can be seen in the urgent care department at University Health Services in Ritenour Building from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or Centre Community Hospital Emergency Room from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.

This meningococcal infection case has occurred almost two months after the death of Andrew Karp (freshman-administration of justice) of meningitis in December of last year.

"From the information that we have now, we cannot establish any connection between those two cases," Spear said. Health services is still investigating the possibility of the connection to be certain.