College Freshmen at Higher Risk of Meningitis
WebMD News Archive
March 27, 2000 (Atlanta) -- High school seniors applying to college for next
fall have something else to worry about besides their major and getting into
the cool dorm. According to a study from Nottingham University in England,
warding off bacterial meningitis should rank right up there with deciding which
professors to avoid.
The U.K. study focuses on meningococcal disease, a rare but potentially
fatal infection caused by the bacterium Neisseria meningitidis. Though a
few people carry this bacterium in their noses or mouths and never get sick, it
is a leading cause of meningitis and septicemia (or blood poisoning) in the
Meningococcal disease is spread by close contact with an infected person --
by sharing cigarettes or drinking glasses, for example, or through intimate
contact such as kissing. The infection initially causes high fever, severe
headaches, stiff neck, and nausea or vomiting and may resemble the flu. Serious
infections may lead to irritability, confusion, drowsiness, coma, even
This type of disease strikes about 3,000 Americans each year and is
responsible for some 300 deaths annually. An estimated 100 to 125 cases of
meningococcal disease occur each year on U.S. college campuses, and five to 15
students die as a result.
The new study, published in the March 25 edition of British Medical
Journal, looked at 2,500 first-year Nottingham University students. Based
on tissue samples taken from the students' mouths, the researchers found that
the percentage carrying the infection nearly quadrupled in the first four days
of the 1997 fall term, says lead researcher Keith Neal, MD. The rate went from
less than 6% to 23% in just those few days.
Students living in all-female dorms were at much lower risk. That is
probably due to social behavior by the different genders, Neal tells WebMD. The
most common risk factors that lead to infection, in order, were drinking in a
bar, smoking, being male, visiting nightclubs, and intimate kissing. "Males
drinking in bars were [at] particular[ly] high risk," Neal says. "We
found a lot of heavy drinking."
Two recent U.S. studies, one from the CDC and another from the University of
Maryland, bear out some of the British findings. Both showed that while rates
of meningococcal disease were no higher in college students in general than in
other young adults, the rates were three to six times greater among freshmen
living in dorms.
James C. Turner, director of student health at the University of Virginia,
says the Nottingham study also reaffirms other risk factors that have been
identified in the U.S. "The study clearly demonstrates that freshman living
in dorms who patronize bars or nightclubs, who are exposed to cigarette smoke,
[and] who drink, are at increased risk of coming down with this disease,"
Turner tells WebMD.