<p>Another thread was discussing a site to let parents "check up" on students grades and attendance. I am all for it because my kid would be sick for weeks before he actually would visit the health center or let me know he has been ill.</p>
<p>Let's hope if it is meningitis, University City (Drexel and Penn) are able to contain it immediately. </p>
<p>So sad. Sounds like Drexel is acting as if it is meningitis and offering antibiotics to those in close contact with the now decease pd young woman. She sounds like she was a wonderful person. Such a loss!</p>
<p>Drexel’s response has been swift and very pro-active.<br>
It is just such a tragedy.<br>
Our region had Meningitis scare in the fall at Princeton which made national news when Princeton got special permission to inoculate with drugs not approved in the U.S. </p>
<p>I had texts fairly early from two local news stations regarding this. I just can only hope the parents and family learned of her passing from a personal call instead of the news media. </p>
<p>Just to respond to the OP, when a woman died in my dorm a few years ago, she started showing symptoms and was dead within hours from meningitis. Keeping track on your kids’ attendance wouldn’t necessarily help anything. </p>
<p>Learned yesterday that the daughter of a friend came down sick over spring break and is now in an induced medical coma with meningitis. Mother is a doctor so got her right to the hospital but they’re still trying to figure out exactly what hit her. She was at a different college in Philadelphia, Franklin & Marshall I think? Very sad and scary for the family.</p>
<p>I can’t remember a year when there were so many student deaths to read about. Four at Penn in the past few months (two suicides, two illnesses), two at Dartmouth, one at UChicago, and now this and your story abuot Franklin & Marshall (which is about 80 miles from Philadelphia, in Lancaster, by the way).</p>
<p>Super scary! There was also the Bates student who died in Italy. Sometimes, all these media reports about student deaths and bad things make it seem they are more common. Not sure they really are–maybe more publicized now. Hope the mom who has her D in medically induced coma can help her D pull through. </p>
<p>meningitis kills very quickly. A student can be out with friends in the afternoon, start feeling sick at dinnertime and be dead by midnight. </p>
<p>My older son got a spinal tap when he was suspected of having meningitis as a freshman in college. It was very scary, but such a relief to see that very clear fluid. </p>
<p>CDC got a foreign approved vaccine against some meningitis strains we don’t cover in our vaccines approved for Princeton and extended to UCSB. I would think it would be extended to Drexel if they need it. Maybe all college students should be approved for it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do beyond the vaccine and the same stuff you do for everything else: good hygiene (wash hands often and WELL) and not putting off getting help if you get very sick, very quickly (though even that is no guarantee of anything). </p>
<p>If this comes back as the B strain (I have no idea whether or not it will), I think they’ll consider moving towards making that immunization available for young people here in America. It will be a slow process though unless a full outbreak happens. </p>
<p>One of the local news channels mentioned that they were thinking the Drexel strain was possibly the same as the one at Princeton, but speculation is not what is needed now. If they don’t know for sure what it is they should not be reporting it. If they do find out that it is the same and they approve the special vaccine I wonder if they will extend it to all of University City schools or just Drexel.</p>
<p>I had meningitis as an adult. Somehow I knew it was different and went immediately to the hospital.</p>
<p>The headache was so bad it felt like my brain was rattling around in my head (as though it had shrunk and had too much space in my skull). I actually was holding my head tight thinking that I could stop it from rattling around. I don’t remember a stiff neck.</p>
<p>Just tell your kids the symptoms and how NOT to think twice about going to the hospital.</p>
<p>A student at my kids’ school died last week of Meningococcal disease. So sad. The boy was sick on Sunday and pulled off life-support on Tuesday. It’s a very scary disease.</p>
<p>I want to know how many of these kids who are dying were immunized. It’s much, much scarier if they have the immunization and are dying from a different strain. </p>