Meningitis kills fourth-year U.Va. student
By Mary Frances Czartsy, assistant news editor
Posted on September 18, 2006

A fourth-year U.Va. student, who formerly attended JMU, passed away last Saturday as a result of an unidentified strain of meningitis, an inflammation of the lining of the spinal cord and brain.

Jennifer Leigh Wells is the first U.Va. student to die from meningitis in 20 years, university health officials said in a recent Cavalier Daily article.

Lilian Peake, district health director for the Thomas Jefferson Health District, said approximately 10 to 15 percent of meningococcal cases result in death.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the symptoms of meningococcal meningitis start with a fever, a headache and a stiff neck. But inflammation of the brain and spinal cord membranes can intensify, leading to coma, shock, organ failure and death within hours.

Wells thought she might be coming down with a cold or a case of the flu, but within hours her fever was so high that paramedics bathed her with cold water as they rushed her to a hospital.

Meningitis is spread through the passing of respiration droplets, such as through kissing, sharing a drinking glass or sneezing on someone. However, sharing a classroom or sitting in the dining hall with someone with meningitis is not considered dangerous contact.

Once a person experiences symptoms, meningitis can be detected by taking a sample of spinal fluid through a spinal tap.

Bacterial meningitis can be treated with a number of effective antibiotics. It is important, however, that treatment be started early in the course of the disease.

The CDC Web site says the meningitis vaccine is very safe and highly effective.

According to the JMU Health Center Web site, the Code of Virginia requires that all full-time students be vaccinated against meningococcal disease prior to enrollment in any public four-year institution of higher education. However, students can sign a written waiver if they opt not to get the vaccine.

Wells’s aunt, Barbara Rickards said the family hopes Wells’s death will raise awareness about meningitis. “We were so ignorant to this whole disease,” Rickards said in the Cavalier Daily. “If nothing else, I think Jennifer would not want this to happen to anyone else.”