SASCHA WIL­SON

The South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) is on height­ened alert af­ter two chil­dren from dif­fer­ent schools in South Trinidad died from sus­pect­ed cas­es of menin­gi­tis. While the cause of the deaths has not been con­firmed, the SWRHA has en­sured pub­lic health mea­sures have been put in place at the schools be­cause the dis­ease is con­ta­gious.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has con­firmed one of the chil­dren was a stu­dent of the Fifth Com­pa­ny Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School, but al­so made no men­tion of a sus­pect­ed case at any oth­er school. How­ev­er, a min­istry source said yes­ter­day that they were un­aware of a sec­ond stu­dent dy­ing from sus­pect­ed menin­gi­tis. The SWRHA al­so did not iden­ti­fy the schools in the re­lease. It stat­ed, “Due to the con­ta­gious na­ture of the dis­ease, of­fi­cials from the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty and the Of­fice of the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health for Coun­ty Vic­to­ria vis­it­ed the chil­dren’s schools to en­sure that the pub­lic health mea­sures have been put in place and sur­veil­lance con­tin­ues.

“The SWRHA con­tin­ues to be on height­ened alert and sur­veil­lance for sus­pect­ed menin­gi­tis cas­es and has co­or­di­nat­ed all its fa­cil­i­ties to be ful­ly pre­pared for any fur­ther pres­ence of the dis­ease in the South-West Re­gion.”

In keep­ing with the SWRHA’s pro­to­cols, the re­lease stat­ed sam­ples to test for menin­gi­tis were tak­en from the pa­tients and sent to the T&T Pub­lic Health Lab­o­ra­to­ry.

“The au­thor­i­ty re­mains com­mit­ted to tak­ing all the pre­cau­tions re­quired to man­age a con­ta­gious dis­ease of this type and is com­mit­ted to safe­guard­ing the health of the pop­u­la­tion.”

Mean­while, a med­ical team is ex­pect­ed to con­duct a screen­ing ex­er­cise for stu­dents of the Fifth Com­pa­ny Bap­tist Pri­ma­ry School in Moru­ga to­day. The five-year-old In­fant One stu­dent died at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last Fri­day. In a re­lease, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said an in­tense and thor­ough san­i­ta­tion ex­er­cise was done at the school. The child’s fa­ther in­formed the school of his daugh­ter’s death on Fri­day. The child had been hos­pi­talised since last Mon­day.

“How­ev­er, the cause of death will on­ly be de­ter­mined af­ter the au­top­sy. Fol­low­ing the re­port on Fri­day af­ter­noon, the school’s prin­ci­pal took im­me­di­ate ac­tion to dis­miss class­es at about 2: pm and im­ple­ment­ed all nec­es­sary safe­ty pro­to­cols. The school clean­ers con­duct­ed a clean­ing and san­i­ta­tion ex­er­cise, while Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials were con­tact­ed,” the min­istry said.

A team of med­ical per­son­nel from the Princes Town Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty vis­it­ed the school and ad­vised the staff of the sani­ti­sa­tion process to be un­der­tak­en. The min­istry said a meet­ing will al­so be held with par­ents to up­date them about fur­ther in­ter­ven­tions to be tak­en at the school. Ex­press­ing con­cern about the sit­u­a­tion, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai said teach­ers should al­so be screened. He said on­ly 25 of the 575 stu­dents turned out yes­ter­day, but 21 out of 24 teach­ers at­tend­ed class­es. He said the teach­ers said the school was not sani­tised over the week­end but it was cleaned with bleach yes­ter­day.

“We were told that the doc­tors who treat­ed the child were ad­min­is­tered an­tibi­otics. We are con­cerned be­cause of the na­ture of the ill­ness and the po­ten­tial for it to be spread to oth­er stu­dents, teach­ers and their fam­i­lies.”

TTUTA, he said, will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion.

The SWRHA lists the fol­low­ing menin­gi­tis symp­toms

Headache

Neck stiff­ness

Nau­sea and vom­it­ing

Mus­cle pain

Stom­ach cramps

In­tol­er­ance to light

Fever with chills and cold hands and feet

Pre­cau­tions for Pre­ven­tion

Per­son­al hy­giene prac­tices are the main means of pro­tect­ing your­self and your fam­i­ly, there­fore mem­bers of the pub­lic can take sim­ple pre­cau­tions to pre­vent the spread of com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases like Menin­gi­tis. Cov­er your nose or mouth with a tis­sue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tis­sue in the trash bin af­ter use and wash your hands with soap and wa­ter. If you don’t have a tis­sue sneeze in­to your sleeve or el­bow Wash your hands thor­ough­ly with soap and wa­ter es­pe­cial­ly af­ter com­ing in con­tact with any se­cre­tions. Avoid touch­ing your eyes, nose and mouth. Stay home when you are sick to avoid spread.