Investigation begins into meningococcal disease deaths

Tasmania’s Health Department is working to determine any possible links between the death of a man yesterday from meningococcal infection and an earlier case in Hobart.

Tasmania’s Health Department is working to determine any possible links between the death of a man yesterday from meningococcal infection and an earlier case in Hobart.It is the second death from meningococcal disease in the State in just over a week.The man in his sixties was admitted to the Royal Hobart Hospital yesterday morning, but died within hours. It was the seventh case of meningococcal infection reported in Tasmania in the past week and the fifteenth for the year. The director of Public Health, Dr Roscoe Taylor, says there is no evidence to suggest a link with any of the other cases. “We are pursuing that epidemiological side of the investigation,” he said.Dr Taylor is again urging people not to panic.Chief executive officer of the Royal Hobart Hospital, Ted Rayment, says there has been no discernible increase in the number of people showing up with symptoms.”From my experience I don’t think there are any more than there would normally be,” he said. Last week, a 16-year-old student from Burnie’s Marist College also died from meningococcal infection.(Source: ABC Health, August 2004)