A cafeteria manager at John Carroll Nalle Elementary School became the fatal victim of the bacterial disease pneumococcal meningitis last weekend.
Since then, the District of Columbia elementary school has been on high alert and the entire school was disinfected.
A letter from the DC Department of Health was sent to the school to simmer the concerns of a possible outbreak. Dr. Roberta DeBiasi, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s National Medical Center, confirmed that the school acted accordingly and no further action needed to be taken.
According to DeBiasi pneumococcal meningitis deaths are extremely rare and standard immunizations are key in preventing children from contracting the disease. She says the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine known as Prevnar has proved to be very effective.
“It is one of the standard routine vaccines that all students receive for school entry…since that vaccine has been introduced, we have seen a reduction in the amount of pneumococcal disease,” DeBiasi said.
