Meningococcal Outbreak Continues; 7 Die in March

Los Angeles County’s worst outbreak of meningococcal disease in 20 years continued in March, when an additional 35 cases and seven deaths were reported, the county Department of Health Services said Friday.

The deadly bacterial infection causes spinal meningitis and blood poisoning. Since December, there have been 155 cases diagnosed in the county, including 33 deaths.

“We are continuing to see more cases than usual,” said Dr. Steve Waterman, chief of acute communicable disease control for the county. “We are on the downward slope of the curve but we will continue to see cases above the base-line rate for a couple of months.”

In recent years, only about 60 cases have been reported in Los Angeles annually, the majority of them in the winter months.

In March, no additional meningococcal cases were reported in the county jails, Waterman said. In earlier months, 15 cases had been diagnosed among inmates, a rate tenfold higher than in the general population.

Meningococcal disease, which can infect the bloodstream or the membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord, is spread through the air and by close contact, sometimes causing epidemics in military barracks. It strikes mostly children between 3 months of age and adolescence--as has been the pattern in the current outbreak.

In the winter about one out of every four people carry Neisseria meningitidis --the bacteria that causes the disease--in their noses or throats. Most either do not become ill or develop only mild flu-like symptoms; however, they can transmit the infection to others. Why some people become very ill and others are not affected is unclear.

In the current meningococcal outbreak, the peak month was January, when 68 cases were diagnosed. Twenty-two cases were reported in December and 30 in February.

In 1986, about 2,500 cases of meningococcal disease were reported in the United States, including 356 in California. In Los Angeles County, the record number of cases in the last 30 years occurred in 1966, when 199 infections were diagnosed.