Student Diagnosed with Meningitis

A senior in Eliot House diagnosed with bacterial meningococcal meningitis Saturday was admitted to a Boston hospital and is in stable condition, University administrators said yesterday.

Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 said that to his knowledge, this is the first reported incidence of bacterial meningitis at Harvard College.

Eliot House Master Lino Pertile sent an e-mail last night to House residents saying that anyone known to have come in contact with Timothy L. Lyons ’04 since March 15 has been contacted and advised to take antibiotics as a precaution. Pertile wrote that he released Lyons’ name to the House community with his family’s permission to ensure that students can “seek appropriate medical advice.”

While College administrators and health officials said the disease can be very serious—even fatal if left untreated—they asserted that the chance of its spreading at Harvard is very low.

Bacterial meningitis is usually treated successfully when diagnosed early on, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) website.

Lyons was accompanied by a friend to University Health Services (UHS) this weekend after experiencing “flu-like symptoms,” UHS Director David S. Rosenthal ’59 said. After it was determined that he had meningitis, Lyons was taken to a Harvard-affiliate hospital in Boston for treatment, where he remained last night, administrators said.

Gross said last night that he did not think the disease would spread to other students, and the six to eight roommates and friends who were in close contact with Lyons were already being treated with antibiotics.

“We make sure that all of the student contacts get treated accordingly,” said Alfred DeMaria, state director of communicable disease control at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), who is working with the College on this case.

There is no way to determine the source of the student’s infection, DeMaria said.

The MDPH gets involved whenever there is a danger to public health, which includes cases of meningitis, DeMaria said.

Gross sent an e-mail last night informing students of the infection, stressing that “meningococcal meningitis is very difficult to catch” and outlining procedures for seeking advice and treatment.

“What any student should do if he or she is concerned is call UHS or go into UHS for testing,” Gross said.

The disease is spread through very close personal contact and, though first-year college students are at a “moderately increased risk” of contracting meningitis, average college students contract it at a lower rate than 18 to 24-year-olds as a whole, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Harvard College recommends that all students get vaccinated for meningitis before arriving at campus, though vaccinations are not required. Connecticut and New Jersey both require meningitis vaccines for all students living in campus housing.

Meningococcal meningitis is characterized by inflammation of the membranes (meninges) around the brain or spinal cord, which can develop suddenly or gradually, and symptoms of the illness include sudden onset of high fever, nausea, headache, aching muscles, vomiting and mental confusion. Rashes also occur in about half of cases.

This form of bacterial meningitis is fatal in 10 percent of cases, with another 10 percent chance of brain damage, according to the Mayo Clinic website. Although only around 100 college students contract meningitis each year, each case has the potential to become a campus-wide epidemic, according to the website.

According to Christopher Coley, chief of medicine for UHS, about three to five out of 10,000,000 college students have contract meningococcal meningitis from somebody else.

“I think the average student in a dorm setting or dining hall, with no sharing of water glasses, is not at any enhanced risk,” Coley said.

Coley said that unlike Lyons’ form of bacterial meningitis, viral meningitis is far more common and often goes undetected.

Coley said that since the CDC has recommended vaccinations for all incoming first-years for the past three years, approximately 70 percent of the last three incoming classes at Harvard have been immunized.

But members of the current senior class, Coley said, were already in college when the initial recommendation was released.

The vaccination for this strain of bacterial meningitis is approximately 75 percent effective and lasts for three to five years, Coley said.

Most recent occurrences of meningitis, including the six people diagnosed within days of each other in New Hampshire in December, have been isolated occurrences, and have not led to outbreaks.

Coley said that secondary cases of meningitis are very rare, even though college students are at a slightly elevated risk because of the dorm setting and their age.

“We’re following CDC guidelines very carefully,” Coley said. “I think students should call, we will have hotlines and physicians on call.”

Early diagnosis and treatment are vital to stopping the progression of the disease, which can be extremely rapid and kill in less than 48 hours in some cases, according to the MDPH.

“For people who don’t seek attention and get very sick, the fatality rate is very high,” Rosenthal said. “This [case] was picked up and brought to the hospital early.”

Bacterial meningitis is extremely rare, affecting 40 people per year in Massachusetts, Rosenthal said. According to the American College Health Association, of the 100 or so college students who contract meningococcal meningitis, five to 15 deaths are reported annually.

According to the MDPH, Neisseria meningitidis, the bacteria that causes meningococcal meningitis, is spread through saliva during kissing, sharing of food, drinks or cigarettes, and sneezing or coughing.

According to the MDPH, five to 15 percent of people carry the bacteria that causes meningococcal meningitis in their noses and throats but do not become infected.

“People can have it in the back of their throats, but it doesn’t cause meningitis until it invades the bloodstream,” DeMaria said. “It is chance whether or not that happens.”

In his e-mail last night, Pertile stressed that “there is no cause for unnecessary alarm.”

“We will take it in stride,” Pertile said in a phone conversation earlier in the evening.

“I think the dorm setting makes the likelihood of this happening less rare,” Pertile said. “This is a very rare occasion, but the likelihood of developing it seems to increase in dormitory and conditions in which people live in close proximity.”

For this reason, many colleges suggest that students get vaccines before moving into dormitories.

There will be a meeting in Eliot House Dining Hall today at 4:30 p.m. for students to talk about the situation.

A Harvard student was diagnosed with the less severe form of viral meningitis in April 1998.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. O’Brien can be reached at robrien@fas.harvard.edu.