Next month, the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine will pick up an on-campus meningitis study that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was forced to abandon a year ago.
This year, Erin Murphy, assistant professor of biomedical science at Ohio University, and Daryn Straley, associate professor of family medicine, are researching the carriage rates of the meningitis bacteria to analyze whether OU students are more likely to carry the disease.
The university began the project after officials were told the CDC would not be returning for research after completing a March 2010 study, Murphy said.
“I think it’s really important to understand why (students with meningitis are) suffering, what’s underlying of this increased rate,” Murphy said. “That way, (OU) can make a plan and prevent it from happening.”
After its initial investigation, the CDC was scheduled to return to OU in order to test the virus carriage rates of students. Because of a lack of resources, though, the study was never started, said Tom Skinner, a CDC spokesman. Now, OU-HCOM will tackle the study.
“We both thought it would be an interesting and practical study for the bacteria strain,” Straley said. “Locally, we’ve had some unique, pretty tragic and unusual experiences. We thought it would benefit the student population and administration in the school to go forward with it.”
In order to test the carriage rates, Murphy will swab volunteering students’ throats at the end of educational meningitis sessions that will offer free pizza and information about how to prevent the disease. The swabs will be kept anonymous as they undergo campus testing, Murphy said.
So far, the study is still in the planning stages, but Straley said it should begin the first week of February. The study is pending Institutional Review Board approval.
“Once that’s done, we expect it to be quick,” Straley said. “Hopefully, we can start then, but it’s still somewhat unknown.”
Ten percent of people carry the bacterial disease in the throat, but Murphy is working with a hypothesis that predicts OU students have a higher carriage rate, she said.
Meningitis carriers can have the disease stay dormant in their bodies but carry the risk of contaminating others through throat fluids, according to the Meningitis Foundation of America.
Bacterial meningitis can be passed to someone else, but the bacteria cannot live outside the body for very long. Some people are naturally resistant and, therefore, will not become carriers.
Bacteria are typically transferred from carrier to carrier and do not usually cause disease, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
The CDC visited OU’s campus in March 2010 to investigate meningitis. During its 18-day stay, the organization researched whether the nine OU students who had contracted meningitis in two years were indicative of an epidemic on campus; the study showed there was not an epidemic.
“We didn’t expect that sort of cluster to occur within two years,” said Mary DiOrio, Ohio state epidemiologist with the Ohio Department of Health. “But we determined that there were no new risk factors, such as those with an upper respiratory infection or smokers. They were told to take care of themselves. Nothing new branched from the investigation.”
sj950610@ohiou.edu
