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| Antibiotics offered to inmates, staff after prisoner gets meningitis |
| By Star-Telegram |
| Published: 12/08/2003 |
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Inmates and staff members at the Johnson County Law Enforcement Center in Texas have been offered preventive antibiotics after an inmate was hospitalized last Monday with meningitis. The 38-year-old inmate remained in Harris Methodist Walls Regional Hospital in Cleburne last Wednesday, a police spokesman said. The inmate, who is from Fort Worth, had shared a unit with numerous other inmates since his arrest July 31, said Jimmy Johnson, chief deputy of the Johnson County Sheriff's Department. "He was in there with 24 other guys," Johnson said. "As far as I know, everybody has been offered [the antibiotics], but I don't know how many have taken it." Dr. Arthur Raines, the county's health official and chief medical examiner, said he cannot specify which type of meningitis the inmate has or whether it is viral or bacterial. Viral meningitis is rare and sometimes fatal. "That's one of the diagnostic problems, trying to figure out which," said Raines, who ordered the one-dose antibiotics sent to the jail. He said that it is not necessary for everyone in the complex to take the treatment but that those in the quarters with the ill inmate should. "This is not the kind of meningitis that generally causes an epidemic," said Raines, who said he could not comment on the inmate's expected recovery time. The inmate was jailed for the manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance and has been sentenced, Johnson said. Raines said the symptoms of meningitis generally include fever, headache, a stiff neck and possibly disorientation. |
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