Adolescents and college students residing in dorms should obtain vaccinations for meningitis, according to a recent government advisory by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Students in that age group are more than six times as likely to contract the disease than other people.
Meningococcal disease, commonly called meningitis, is a potentially life-threatening disease cased by bacteria that infect the membranes around the brain and spinal cord.
The disease kills approximately 300 Americans per year, and those who survive can often suffer devastating complications that range from brain damage, hearing loss and amputations.
Meningitis can be hard to diagnose, since the symptoms of fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea and sleepiness can be easy to confuse with the flu.
Depending on the patient, the symptoms can take anywhere from several hours to days to develop, and immediate medical attention is advised.
College students have the option to vaccinate against meningitis but with vaccinations costing close to $80 per dose and the lack of mandatory university requirements, not all students follow through on the advice. However, the combination of the new CDC recommendations and last month’s FDA approval of a new stronger form of meningitis vaccination may lead college student health centers to implement stronger preventative measures against the disease. The new vaccine, called Menactra, is slightly more expensive than the older vaccination costing about $100 per dose.
Made by Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine protects against four of the most common strains of meningitis-causing bacteria and also lasts four to five years longer than the old vaccine. Menactra can also prevent people from being unwitting carriers of the disease.Meningococcal infections are somewhat rare, with only about 3,000 people infected annually. Yet approximately 50 percent of these infections occur in people over 15 years of age, with fatality rates of 14 percent in those aged 14 to 24 years, according to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended vaccinations for students entering middle and high school and college.
“Students come from living in their own homes with a steady access to that germ pool. In residential halls they come in contact with a different germ pool arrangement which can lead to various infections,” said Sue Courts, director of the student health clinic at the University of Northern Iowa.
“Meningitis is mostly spread through saliva, and so college students tend to be at risk whether sharing saliva through kissing, sharing cigarettes, ChapStick, eating utensils. Sharing beer or drinking out of the same water bottle can set them at risk.

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