R.I. schools to reopen after meningitis scare

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Schools in three communities are scheduled to reopen today after health investigators found no link among an elementary pupil who contracted meningitis and three others in the state infected with encephalitis.

Returning students likely will see many more hand-sanitizing stations in the coming weeks as officials work to ensure that a similar scare doesn’t happen again.

Mycoplasma bacteria were blamed for the cases of encephalitis in Warwick and West Warwick in the past few weeks. Dylan Gleavey, a second-grade pupil at Warwick’s Greenwood Elementary School, died from the neurological illness last month.

Test results received Saturday from a pupil at Hopkins Hill Elementary School in Coventry who contracted meningitis showed the child did not have mycoplasma, according to the state Health Department. The pupil’s name hasn’t been released.

David Gifford, director of the state health department, said that an investigation by the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that “there are no new cases of encephalitis in children, no increased levels of mycoplasma pneumoniae-associated illness and no concentration of that illness in any community.”

More than 20,000 Rhode Island students were kept out of school Thursday and Friday as authorities investigated a possible link among the cases.

All public schools and after-school activities were closed Thursday and Friday in Warwick, West Warwick and Coventry. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence also closed eight schools in those communities as a precaution, although there were no known cases there.

Meningitis is an inflammation of membranes protecting the brain, and encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain. Mycoplasma can occasionally cause such neurological complications.

Gov. Don Carcieri has urged residents to practice good hygiene, such as hand-washing, to help stop the spread of any illness and said he would require hand-sanitizing gels in schools.

Experts say about 5 percent to 6 percent of people with walking pneumonia develop neurological complications, including encephalitis and meningitis.

A college student from Bangor, Maine, Danielle M. Thompson, 21, died in New Hampshire last Wednesday from bacterial meningitis

Dr. Dora Mills, head of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday that about 40 of Thompson’s friends and relatives from Penobscot County have been contacted and were started on antibiotics. Officials in New Hampshire said another 29 contacts from outside Maine needed antibiotics as well.

The organisms that cause meningitis are spread through saliva. Those who would be most at risk would be people who shared food and beverages, kissed or used the same utensils.

Mills noted that though the bacterium that caused Thompson’s death is not especially easy to catch, holiday gatherings may have brought her into contact with more people than usual.

Thompson was the daughter of Catherine and Kevin Thompson of Bangor.