County employee may have meningitis

A Spokane County employee was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Center on Thursday with what could be bacterial meningitis, a county official said.

The Inland Northwest Blood Center’s Bloodmobile, which had been conducting a blood drive at the county offices, was sent home Thursday morning as a precaution, said Ron Kole, the county’s communications manager.

Epidemiologists from the Spokane County Regional Health District completed a routine contact investigation and determined that there had been “no significant exposures” at the county offices, said Dr. Kim Thorburn, the county’s health officer.

Had it been determined co-workers were at risk of exposure, Thorburn said, they would have been given antibiotics to head off infection. That was not necessary, she said.

Nor has bacterial meningitis been confirmed in the county employee. That can only be determined by growing the bacterium responsible for the disease in a culture, a process that can take 96 hours, Bill Edstrom of the health district’s epidemiology center, said Thursday evening.

The identity and condition of the county employee, who was admitted to Sacred Heart at about noon, was unavailable Thursday.

Meningitis, sometimes called spinal meningitis, is an infection of the fluid in the spinal cord and brain, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. It can be caused by a virus or bacterium. The more severe bacterial meningitis can be treated with antibiotics, but it is important to know which type of bacteria is causing the disease.

Of greatest threat to the community is meningococcal meningitis caused by the bacterium, neisseria meningitides.

“There is no evidence of that,” Thorburn said on Thursday. “It has not been confirmed as meningococcal or any other.”

No form of bacterial meningitis is as contagious as the common cold and can only be spread through direct contact with the respiratory secretions of an infected person. Symptoms of meningitis include high fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, a rash, confusion and sensitivity to light. Persons with these symptoms are urged to contact a health care provider.