2nd Orange County Child Dies of Rare Disease

Twelve-year-old Kori Emer came home from school Wednesday with a headache. By noon the next day, she was dead.

Authorities said Friday that she was the second child in Orange County to die of meningococcus, a rare but highly aggressive disease, in the last three weeks. A seventh-grade classmate of hers at Costa Mesa High School was in critical condition with the disease at Children’s Hospital of Orange County and a fourth patient was treated last month. An 8-year-old girl died in January. The doctor overseeing all four cases declined to release information about the 8-year-old or the child who recovered.

The disease is “easily treatable with antibiotics,” said Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. But it can kill quickly if undiagnosed.

Public health officials and pediatric doctors on Friday cautioned parents and others not to panic, but to be alert.

“There is no outbreak, there is no epidemic,” said Dr. Hildy Meyers, Orange County Health Care Agency epidemiologist. “The number of cases is not unusual, especially in winter or early spring.”

In 1996, there were 33 cases of meningococcus in Orange County, with three deaths. Los Angeles County saw its lowest levels of the disease in 20 years in 1995, but experienced a small outbreak of deaths last January during an especially virulent flu season. At any given time, up to 15% of the population are carrying the bacteria in their throats, Meyers said. Nationally, an average 3,000 cases of the disease are reported each year, with a 10% to 15% mortality rate.

The disease, which can be spread through sharing food or drink or prolonged exposure to an infected person’s coughing or sneezing, is capable of rapidly ravaging the body’s organs and immune system if not treated promptly. Symptoms include sudden high fever, nausea and vomiting; intense headache; a stiff neck; and sensitivity to bright lights.

Those especially at risk include babies and young children in group settings, such as day care, and people with compromised immune systems.

“Most kids will survive this, but for the one kid whose body can’t handle it, it is like setting off a nuclear bomb,” said Dr. Antonio Arrieta, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Orange County who treated Emer and is handling her classmate’s case. The bacteria spread through both girls’ bloodstreams, causing meningococcemia, rather than meningitis, an infection of the brain or spinal cord.

Kori Emer was a healthy child, an avid soccer player and reader, eager and worried all at once about her future, according to her mother, Gloria Emer.

Kori came home from school with a headache Wednesday, took an aspirin and ate some food, then lay down, her mother said. By 6:30, she was hurting all over. Later she began vomiting, and her condition deteriorated through the night. Her parents took her to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Orange early Thursday morning and watched in horror as her breathing slowed, and a rash spread over her body.

“That’s the unfortunate part, it spreads so rapidly,” said her mother, who with her husband Joseph stayed at her daughter’s hospital bed. “In three hours, it was over.”

Kori’s younger sister, other family members and closest friends were vaccinated promptly with the antibiotic rifampin. Wide-scale vaccinations are not used because the immunization wears off quickly, resistance to the drug can build up, and it would not be cost-effective to treat large numbers of people for a rare disease, doctors said.

Still, health officials urged anyone who had been in close contact with Kori to see a doctor. Students were not at Costa Mesa junior and senior high schools on Friday because they had the day off to prepare for final exams.

“Thursday was Kori’s math exam,” her mother said. “She was so worried she was not going to be well enough to go when she first was getting sick. She was a good student, a high achiever.”

Her hospitalized schoolmate was in some of the same classes with her, and is on the volleyball team. The incubation period for the disease can be as long as 10 days, but usually lasts about three days. Officials plan to have school open on Monday.

Orange County Public Health Officer Hugh Stallworth warned parents not to panic.

“There is not a lot to fear. Just by being in the same school with someone doesn’t mean you need to be worried about getting bacterial meningitis,” he said.

“Ordinarily, in very young kids, kindergarten or first grade, the age group where kids are touchy-feely, if a child develops a bacterial meningitis then we recommend that everyone in the class get [preventive] treatment,” Stallworth said.

Because older children do not typically touch each other as much, the Health Care Agency has so far recommended only that family members and people who may have had close contact with the sick students see a doctor.

Meyers said that if a rash is noticed along with high fever or other symptoms, it is advisable to seek prompt treatment.

Times staff writers Tina Nguyen and Ken Ellingwood contributed to this report.