Brownsville middle school student dies of bacterial meningitis

For more information about bacterial meningitis, visit the Web site for the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at www.cdc.gov.

BROWNSVILLE — A seventh-grade girl at Lucio Middle School who had attended classes through last Thursday has died of apparent bacterial meningitis, Brownsville school district officials said late Tuesday.

The student’s cousin reported her death to Lucio officials on Tuesday. Since early diagnosis and treatment are very important for bacterial meningitis, Brownsville school district health personnel issued a letter Tuesday afternoon to Lucio parents advising them of the situation.

According to a prepared statement from the school district, health officials have been in contact with the girl’s physician. The Cameron County Health Department does not recommend any preventive medicine or screening.

A crisis response team of six district counselors was sent to Lucio to provide grief counseling to students and staff.

Meningitis is an infection of the fluid of a person's spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some forms of bacterial meningitis are contagious and can be spread through coughing and kissing; however, the disease can be treated with a number of effective antibiotics, with the best results achieved when treatment is started early after infection.

Appropriate antibiotic treatment of most common types of bacterial meningitis should reduce the risk of dying from the disease to below 15 percent, although the risk is higher among the elderly, the CDC states on its Web site.