Schools: Tighten Meningitis Shot Law

By ADAM EMERSON The Tampa Tribune

Published: Sep 27, 2007

State university health directors are urging a change in state law to require that all new students be vaccinated against bacterial meningitis.

The directors met in Tallahassee on Wednesday to talk about how best to protect students against the infection, which killed a 19-year-old University of South Florida sophomore Monday.

Current law allows students to opt out of the vaccine, and health directors say that's a problem. They want the state's university oversight board to seek a change in the law that allows few exemptions, such as medical or religious.

"It is the belief of the campus health directors that too many students currently are being granted an exemption from the vaccination requirement," said Bill Edmonds, spokesman for the Board of Governors, which oversees Florida's 11 public universities.

Board members welcomed the proposal but wanted to know whether health directors are OK with limiting the vaccination to students at highest risk: those 26 and younger. The board will consider the directors' final suggestions at its meeting in Tallahassee today.

USF already had announced its intent to require meningitis vaccinations by next fall among students living on campus. Rachel Futterman, 19, contracted bacterial meningitis and died Monday, two days after she had a seizure at the Delta Gamma sorority house.

USF spokesman Ken Gullette said the university would be willing to work with the Board of Governors but added that USF attorneys think the university has the authority to require the vaccination of students living in its residence halls and Greek housing.

Shot May Have Protected Student

USF officials won't say whether Futterman was immunized against meningitis. Hillsborough County health officials said the vaccine administered to students does prevent the strain that attacked her.

State lab results released Wednesday show that Futterman had serogroup C bacterial meningitis, one of several strains of the disease the vaccine guards against, said Warren McDougle, epidemiology manager for the Hillsborough County Health Department.

Although USF officials won't say whether Futterman waived the vaccination, they do say she completed the paperwork allowing her to opt out.

University officials acknowledge lax enforcement of even that step among other students. Students are required to complete that paperwork before moving into residence halls, but Gullette said USF was allowing students into dorms and later "hounding them throughout the school year" for their forms.

New Focus On Vaccinations

Although the university wants to require the vaccine of all campus residents by next fall and possibly earlier, Gullette said that until then, USF won't let anyone move into residence halls until they decide whether to get vaccinated.

This week, though, hundreds of students have been jarred enough by the sudden death of their schoolmate to get vaccinated. By late Wednesday, the USF health clinic had immunized nearly 540 students against meningitis. Egilda Terenzi, USF's director of Student Health Services, said she ordered 400 more doses of the vaccine, Menactra, for today.

County health officials encourage vaccinations, but McDougle said anyone who had close contact with Futterman would have shown symptoms of the disease by now if they were susceptible to the illness. Health officials gave the antibiotic Cipro to about 70 people who had close contact with her.

Reporter Adam Emerson can be reached at (813) 259-8285 or aemerson@tampatrib.com.