One student dies of bacterial meningitis, thirteen contact cases identified by ARS

In a press release from the Hauts-de-France regional health agency, the public health agency said one student died following “bacterial meningitis.”

A student at the Catholic University of Lille died after contracting bacterial meningitis, the Hautes-de-France regional health agency said this Friday, February 9.

According to ARS, this student had been in “close contact” with a total of thirteen people in the past ten days.

In this sense, “health surveillance teams have contacted in recent hours, together with university teams, all people” related to these contacts with the sick student “to prescribe them preventive antibiotic treatment”.

“Low risk of transmission”

ARS specifies that “meningitis presents low transmission risks”. According to the agency, to prove a risk, there must be “close, close and repeated contact” with an infected person and this “within the last ten days (the maximum duration of the warm period)”.

“Sharing a drink or kissing each other, for example, does not present a risk of transmission,” writes the Hautes-de-France regional health agency.

According to the Public Health Institute, “closing or disinfecting the premises is unnecessary (…), germs cannot survive in the external environment.”

“Students and staff may continue to attend the establishment as normal,” the ARS concluded.