PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — An inmate at a prison in Delaware County has tested positive for meningitis. Officials are working to contain the spread of the potentially deadly disease.
It was on Sunday, Sept. 13 when a prisoner at George W. Hill Correctional Facility was rushed to the hospital. Shortly after that, he was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis.
George Basile, Delaware County’s assistant director of public affairs, said the county has been contact tracing, in order to find others who were potentially exposed to the disease between Sept. 2-12.
“[That is] to ensure that any contact tracing as well as any quarantine measures that are necessary and prescribed by the commonwealth are followed to a T,” he said.
As Delaware County Health Department Director Lora Werner explained, the disease infects membranes in the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include sudden fevers, headache, stiff neck, altered mental status, and light sensitivity.
“It can cause septic infection in the body,” she said, “lung infection, joint infection, those kinds of things.”
Meningitis is known to spread through respiratory and throat secretions. “You need to have contact with their saliva or something, like you shared a drinking water bottle for example,” Werner said, “or you kissed or they coughed and you had that contact with their secretion.”
According to Werner, through contact tracing, health officials will provide an antibiotic to individuals who may have been exposed.
