Contagious meningitis case is confirmed

MOUNT VERNON — Skagit County health officials, who just two weeks ago were coping with an outbreak of viral meningitis, this week confirmed a case of much more serious bacterial meningitis.

Bacterial meningitis was confirmed Monday in a 14-year-old boy at La Conner High School.

"They’re not related," said Peter Browning, the county’s public health director. Viral meningitis, reported here and in Pacific County recently, "is just a nasty headache, a sore neck and a sore back."

But when the earlier viral outbreak occurred, "the whole time we kept doing cerebral spinal fluid checks to make sure it wasn’t bacterial. That’s the biggest fear during a viral outbreak."

Bacterial meningitis can cause death in as many as 20 percent of cases and can leave survivors brain-damaged.

"It’s very contagious," Browning said.

The victim, whose name was not released, is "a very active boy" who competed in a junior-varsity football game on Saturday and a recreation-league basketball game on Sunday.

"All the games he’s been involved with in the last 10 days — we had to notify all those young people and medicate them."

Browning said he was confident that health officials had administered preventive antibiotics to all those who had come in contact with the youth.

None of them had symptoms, which include nausea, high fever, intense headaches, rash, lethargy and sensitivity to light. Since they’re symptom-free, "the medication we issued today is adequate," Browning said.

When the symptoms become serious, sufferers need to get to an emergency room and start intravenous treatments and "a much more aggressive antibiotic regime," he said.

Browning said he did not know how the young man was doing. New federal privacy rules bar disclosure of his condition unless the public health is at issue, he said.

"We really only need to deal with people who had contact" with the teen, he said.

Bacterial meningitis is transmitted by direct contact with nose or throat secretions. The incubation period is two to 10 days.