22 persons watched after teen dies of meningo

LEGAZPI CITY—Health authorities here are closely watching at least 22 persons they traced to have come in contact with the 17-year-old female patient confirmed to have died Wednesday of meningococcemia in a hospital in Tabaco City, Albay.

Dr. Luis Mendoza, chief of the Provincial Health Office (PHO), on Friday said that based on their contact-tracing measure, they found 11 persons in Tabaco City and 11 persons in Daraga town, both in Albay, to have been in contact with the female patient.

He said the PHO’s health surveillance team immediately gave the 22 people chemoprophylaxis, a drug to prevent the disease.

Mendoza confirmed that the female victim was “clinically afflicted” with meningococcemia based on her symptoms, which included fever and rashes.

He said that after her death, she was placed in a body bag and in a sealed casket before her burial on the same day at the public cemetery in Tabaco City.

The victim’s burial was closely supervised by the city sanitary inspector and other health officials, he said.

Immediate burial was necessary to prevent the spread of the disease, meningococcemia being a highly contagious disease that can be transmitted through respiratory droplets.

Mendoza said the girl’s father arrived from Masbate, her home province, on the day she died but he was prevented from seeing her body prior to her burial to prevent contamination.

Mendoza said the victim was a native of Aroroy, a mining town in Masbate, but was staying at a boarding house in Barangay Matagbak in Tabaco City as she was studying at the Bicol University campus there.

Before the June 13 opening of classes, the victim stayed with her aunt from June 4 to 11 in Barangay Villahermosa, Daraga town, and went to Tabaco City on June 11 and stayed at her boarding house.

Dr. Nathaniel Rempillo, assistant provincial health chief, said they have yet to determine where the victim got the disease.

He added that the 22 persons found in contact with the victim were told to be on self-observation for a period of one week and to immediately alert health authorities should they manifest body pains and rashes.

He stressed that there was no need to quarantine the 22 persons as the drug given to them was a “100-percent guarantee” that they would not get the deadly disease.

Rempillo said that so far, the 22 have not shown any symptoms of the disease but they were advised to refrain from going around their respective communities or in any public place while they are under self-observation.

The Department of Health has described meningococcemia as an acute and potentially life-threatening infection of the bloodstream caused by a bacteria called Neisseria meningitidis.

The bacteria frequently lives in a person’s upper respiratory tract without causing visible signs of illness. The bacteria is airborne, it can be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets.

Family members and those closely exposed to someone with the condition are at increased risk.

Symptoms may include fever, rashes, headache, anxiety, irritability, muscle pain and nausea. Later symptoms may include changing level of consciousness and large areas of bleeding under the skin.